Screech From Front End BJ70

[dcruiser666]

On the last trip I took I noticed a loud screech from the front driver side (lhd) wheel. This only happened in one condition, going up-hill in 4 wheel drive and hitting a bump or sharp undulation - lots of front suspension compression. The sound is a short blast, kind of metallic, and a similar sensation to wheel spin. I thought it may be tire rubbing but with an observer it was not close to contacting anything. When I returned home I removed the hub dials, which I recently rebuilt, and made sure they were engaging properly. I noticed that the end of the axle had a tiny bit of play, ~1mm all around, if I pushed on it or wiggled it with my fingers. Couple questions -

Has anyone experienced a sound like this in this condition or have ideas of what it might be?
Is the axle play normal?
Could this be a driveshaft compression problem?
Should I consider disassembling the front end for an inspection?

Thanks

EDIT - this also happens in 2wd

 

[roscoFJ73]

I used to get some noise, difficult to describe, from the front yolk. When I bought the 73 series it was missing a domed seal that stopped the grease from oozing out leaving the spline dry. You cant buy the part ,so I ended up buying a used yolk cheap and that cured it.
But I never had the noise in 2wd

 

[dcruiser666]

Thanks for the comment, I'm going to take off the driveshaft next and try to recreate the sound, mostly to narrow my search. This is a new driveshaft so I was thinking there might be too much grease in it to compress. I experienced the same noise in 2wd yesterday while going a bit too fast into a speed bump, should be easy to do this again. Kind of threw a wrench into my theories so far though. I'm also considering if it's the fan hitting the shroud, caused by a weak mount or something. I will try to work out a test for this.

 

[roscoFJ73]

I will try to work out a test for this.

You would see some marks on the shroud

 

[dcruiser666]

Yes, well there are marks but I don’t know if they were there already. I’ll put painters tape around the opening and see if it gets marked. I think it may be this though. There looks like half a cm or less between the top of the shroud and the blades, while more than 4 cm between the bottom. Not normal right?