Hey guys,

I've been rebuilding my truck for quite some time now. Started with a full body swap and then ran into an issue when driving with what I thought would be a simple fix but it has turned into a nightmare! It's a 2007 ranger sport extended cab 4.0L with 4x4, about 220k km on it now.

The new parts are as follows:
-New CV axles and seals (Cardone)
-New hub assemblies with bearings (Mevotech)
-New transmission with approximately 15 000 km
-New brakes all around pads rotors drums hardware (Raybestos)
-New brake lines and parking brake cables
-New shocks all around (Gabriel)
-All fluids flushed and replenished
-New tires (General Grabber)
-All rubber pieces bushings etc have been replaced

And after all of this the truck is making a horrible grinding sound coming from the front end when driving straight and turning. Sounds similar to what a bad wheel bearing would sound like with the metal on metal grinding sound and gets worse as the truck speeds up. I've looked everything over half a dozen times now and everything is tight and I've run out of ideas on what it could be so any help would be greatly appreciated thanks!

 

Welcome to the forum

Propeller joint that connects front driveshaft to transfer case was a common failure point on 1998 and up Ranger 4x4s

But in any case I would remove front drive line and drive vehicle without it, in 2WD, to see if the noise is in the front axle assembly or the transfer case
If no noise then shift to 4WD and see if noise comes back, that would indicate transfer case issue

Because front wheels are locked to transfer case all the time, its the only way to determine if its a front axle issue or transfer case issue