I put in FJ coils and 5100s, after pulling the blown XREAS system last weekend after planning this for a long time.
I saw that my CV joint was bad in addition to the blown XREAS shock, but couldn't get to it last weekend.
After the suspension swap, I had a clunking noise still and when I went into 4 Hi and 4 Lo, it got much worse. A lot of grease had come out of the CV boot. The CV must have been the culprit, right?
Yesterday, a week later, I did my first CV swap, and other than the usual learning curve, it went well.
I took her for a test drive and my heart sank.
The clunking was different, but was still there. It was more like a clicking, tinking sound that started at 10 mph and increased and decreased with speed.
It was bad.
When I put it in 4 Hi and 4 Lo, it was way louder and just sounded like the left front was going to come off!
I figured I screwed something up, or got a defective CV replacement. The symptoms led me to think: hub, transfer case, differential, or bearings ($$$), and actually I went to bed convinced (hoping!) it was the u joints after some digging. The symptoms made sense.
I checked everything out this evening, putting her up on 4 jack stands, and checked the suspension components, etc I wiggled everything, all the usual stuff.
Nothing.
I got underneath and checked the back U joint.
Nothing.
I checked the front U joint and started laughing.
The XREAS line got pulled tight when I zip tied it and was resting against the U joint.
Here is where I zip tied the front drivers XREAS junction point, which caused all that trouble:
All that racket was the XREAS line resting there and being slapped by the u joint. I guess the front U joint starts turning above 25 mph or so.
So she runs like new, quiet and smooth now! What a riot! I had myself going pretty good there for a second.
If you zip tie the XREAS lines, don't forget to check out the lines back where they cross over the frame.
This is what it looks like temporarily until I can pull the XREAS lines and controllers out:
Linear Mode
