I'll go ahead and start this from the beginning. I put a lift and 33s on my truck back in August. I have a 7.5 and 3.73s so I knew that I'd probably end up having to replace the axle eventually. I'm hoping that's the solution to my problem.

When leaving my friend's house about a 10 days ago, my truck made a strange noise and "bucked" a little when I shifted into reverse from park. I guess a loud click is the best way to describe it. I was hoping that it was just a one-time thing, but it still hasn't gone away. It feels and sounds like the problem is at the axle, but I can't confirm that. It doesn't happen when going from drive to reverse.

A few days later, I noticed that my truck was having some trouble shifting gears, but only after I get above 45mph or so. It will eventually shift, but it takes longer than usual and it revs pretty high before it shifts. My transmission went out about 2 and a half years ago, and I had it rebuilt. Back when that happened, I had trouble getting through my gears, but it was bad through all of the gears, and my O/D Off light was constantly flashing. Now it only happens in the higher gears and isn't nearly as consistent. The O/D off light isn't on now either.

So my question is, can any of you guys point me in the direction of what exactly my problem is? I hope it's just the rear axle and not the transmission since it would be much cheaper to replace. Sorry to make this so long but I'm trying to give y'all as much information as possible. Truck is an 02 Edge with a 3.0 and auto. There's about 103k miles on it.

 

when my 7.5 started goin out it started to whine and it never bucked or had trouble shifting...

 

Wirelessly posted

I haven't heard any whining from it. I just drove about an hour on the interstate and in town and it did just fine. No trouble shifting at all. I'm on break from school for the next few days so I'll keep monitoring it and see what happens. I'll probably go ahead and start looking for an 8.8 since I'll end up needing it anyways.