Vibration / Grinding after Incident
 

2005 4runner -

My son was driving and hit a curb hard enough to break the lower control arm and send the tire into the fender. It tweaked the steering and smashed up the fender pretty well.

I have replaced the lower control arm, CV Axel, and a new steering rack. Has it aligned, and all seemed well.

However not when I accelerate say 70% plus throttle I get a vibration / grinding noise from the front.

Lets hear your thoughts? Could I have messed up the front diff, could it just be motor mounts and the CV separating and spinning?

Love to hear ideas so I can trouble shoot.

That is certainly strange..

-Does it sound like a mechanical grind?
-How are you feeling the vibration? Is it in the steering wheel or do you just feel a shudder?
-I'm assuming you did not change the wheel bearing? Not that I think that is the issue..

From my previous differential failures (on different platforms) a failing ring gear with chunks missing out of various gears produced a sound on or off throttle at any mph/any RPM. Not that I'm saying the ring/pinion would have failed from a side-load impact... If the spider gears were to fail you shouldn't be hearing that under straight line acceleration since they shouldn't be rotating at that point..

If there isn't a good way to produce the sound at low mph on jack stands I think what I would do is pull your front driveshaft, lock the center diff and drive it in 2wd (rwd) to see if the sound is still there... if it is, you could take it a step further and maybe even pull the axles out at that point so that your differential isn't being spun by the wheels to see if the noise is still there.

sounds like a doozy...