GRINDING Front left wheel...

[DallasGT01]

So I just became the owner of a 2004 EB 4X4 with a 4.6... it has 173k on it...

now to the issue at hand...

whenever im turning left there is a grinding coming from the front left wheel... doesn't do it when it turns right.. and every so often when making a uturn left of course the vehicle makes a POP noise... it doesn't do it at all to the right so my first thought was wheel bearings... but I thought if it was wheel bearings wouldn't it do it all the time? so then I thought axle... im new to 4x4 so I have no clue... the car was a Oklahoma car and there was red dirt everywhere... ive checked the brakes and had new tires put on... the shaking went away it had as the tires were worn to hell...

so my question is what do y'all think it is? wheel bearing or axle? or something else???

 

[pet575]

My initial guesses would be wheel bearing and/or CV axle. I include AND in there because the pop is usually a CV symptom. The grind you describe is usually a wheel bearing issue. If you are doing one repair you are pretty much in the same position to do the other one while you are there if you can afford the parts.

Word of caution: my front differential went bad and made these same noises, so my answer is not the only possibility. I found out after changing my wheel bearing.

 

[DallasGT01]

well I replaced both... but broke the bolt that goes onto the uca... so I wont know if its fixed... all the teeth on the stock axle look fine... no signs of it jumping... the bearing looked rough...

 

[N1265]

I have the same problem on my 04 with 80k, I only notice it when turning at low speeds like pulling into the driveway. I replaced the rotors, pads and checked the bearings but no difference. It seems like a caliper not fully releasing after being compressed.

when I pulled the calipers off again, I realized that one of the pins have a rubber insert on them and they must go into the right position, one of the holes in each caliper are slightly bigger in diamater than the other. I elected to simply remove the the rubber insert when reinstalling and altho the caliper moves more freely, the condition seem to be worse.

I have not dug further into the issue because of the weather, But I suspect that I will need new pins or maybe have a rubber hose partially collapsing.

Not sure what the big deal with the rubber insert is, this is the first car I have ever had with them.