WildBlue goes RideTech

[GeoffP]

Geoff, if setup properly I agree with Mako, there should be very little noise coming from it even 4.11's..I think the reason you made the noise better was relief of link binding. With the links under tension (bind) they transfer vibration easier. There are a lot of harmonics going on in a vehicle, all of which when adjusted correctly create music!

I should've included that my brother had the gears installed in the axle about 15 years ago. They were used when he bought them and they were also known to be noisy. The axle had 3.55's in it when he bought it and I personally wish he'd left that gear set in the axle! He was getting into drag racing at the time and didn't care if they were noisy because the big block that was in the car drowned out the gear noise due to the 3" dual Flowmaster exhaust he had installed at the time. You couldn't hear the gear noise at all over the exhaust. I changed the car to something I'd be comfortable driving regularly by adding power steering, power brakes, a/c, etc. Anyway, the gears really are setup correctly, they're just noisy due to a previous setup being wrong and as you know once gears are setup incorrectly and develop noise there's no correcting it without replacing the gear set. I don't have the tools and don't know anyone I'd trust to do a gear change correctly here local so I just haven't fixed it yet. I am contemplating buying the tools and doing the swap myself. I just have to save the money up to do it.

I didn't think the axle was in bind because I checked it by hand by move the axle manually with the center section suspended on a jack as well as articulating the axle straight up and down with the jack when I was assembling everything. I thought maybe the pinion angle causing driveshaft bind might've amplified the sound.