Diff axle bearings???

[Kidd7]

2001 Ex 2wd
Are there axle bearings in the rear diff (not at the ends of the axle)? If so, how difficult are they to replace & what else should I look for?
Reason for asking. I was on a road trip and hear some roaring that changes with speed. I put he truck on stands and spun each wheel, listening and feeling. There was some odd noise and a kind of bumping feeling on the rear wheels, just not spinning completely free. I replaced the axle bearing & seals on the ends. Once it was all back together, the bumping and noise was still there. Nothing is noticeable when driving. I spun the wheels in park, no driveshaft rotation, so not being cause by the pinion. That leads me to believe there is something wrong in the read end. Any ideas and what to look for or what needs replaced? Thanks.

 

[imp]

2001 Ex 2wd
Are there axle bearings in the rear diff (not at the ends of the axle)? If so, how difficult are they to replace & what else should I look for?
Reason for asking. I was on a road trip and hear some roaring that changes with speed. I put he truck on stands and spun each wheel, listening and feeling. There was some odd noise and a kind of bumping feeling on the rear wheels, just not spinning completely free. I replaced the axle bearing & seals on the ends. Once it was all back together, the bumping and noise was still there. Nothing is noticeable when driving. I spun the wheels in park, no driveshaft rotation, so not being cause by the pinion. That leads me to believe there is something wrong in the read end. Any ideas and what to look for or what needs replaced? Thanks.

@Kidd7
The noise could be from several things. The differential carrier itself, the part which spins inside connected to the inner ends of the axle shafts, is supported by two tapered roller bearings. They rotate at axle speed, thus if bad, produce lower pitch noise than pinion bearings, or bad gear teeth.

Another possibility is damaged differential or spider gears. They are inside the differential carrier. The differential gears are splined internally to accept the ends of the axle shafts. The spider gears operate supported on a pin set at right angles to the axles themselves. Damaged teeth on any of these four gears will produce noise.

Is there sufficient lubricant in the rear end? imp

 

[Kidd7]

There was and is again, sufficient lubricant in there.There is no noise when driving, the noise I did hear, that started this whole thing, is tire related. It's definitely something you can feel by rotating the tires by hand. Now that I'm thinking over this, it does kind of feel like 2 gears that aren't quite messed correctly and you have to rotate to get the gears to catch. There was not any significant amount of metal when I opened up the rear end. PO could have cleaned it up and punted though. I'm probably going to have to open that rear end up and check everything out again.

 

[boominXplorer]

If you have a non limited slip rear and you spin one of the rear wheels off the ground the other tire is going to spin the other way and you'll hear the chatter of the spider gears working. This is totally normal.

Have you checked your front bearings? Spin the front tire and grab the torsion bar as you do it feeling for the vibration. Wheel bearing noises can be hard to track down