# YJ with Homesteader Pix



## sweetnsimple (Dec 14, 2005)

Here's some marketing-style pix of my '94 Wrangler YJ with 2.5 L and auto trans, 2.5" Rancho lift kit, 16" Rock Crawler wheels and 245/75R-16 Goodyear MTRs all around. It's pushing a Fisher Homesteader poly in the 6'8" size, and in the one pic sits alongside my '04 Rubicon that tows a trailer with a 42-inch tractor-mounted snowblower inside for doing full-service customers with perimeter sidewalks that stretch on forever.

Got a question that I tried posting without any pix attached and had but a handful of views and a single response, so I'm gonna try it again with the pix and see if it doesn't generate more interest/responses. What the hell ....

So here it is: Couple days ago while plowing with the YJ in 4H, I hit a clear spot of pavement while making a hard left turn and generated a horrible crunching, popping, gear-gnashing sound from the front of the Jeep. Since then I've noticed some snapping sounds coming from this area when turning hard left on snow, shifting to reverse and accelerating, turning right on snow (though not as bad), and it happens in both 4H and 4L, but never in 2H.

On the day this first happened I checked the fluid level in the differential and found it to be a bit low and looking really foul. Also noticed some pooling around the seal of the left front wheel. I drained as much gear lube as possible with a suction gun and refilled with Lucas 85-140 heavy-duty fluid, topped off with some Lucas oil stabilizer to bump up the viscosity. That seems to have stopped the leaking from around the seal and modified the noises a bit, but not completely.

Question(s) are: What's making that nasty sound? How long before it starts to hurt performance (rascal still scoots along in 4H and 4L same as before) and/or do major damage to parts? And what's the fix, amount of time/money involved to make it right? Tessdaddy suggested the front axle universal joints, which are original and do look pretty shabby, and so may indeed be the culprits. Anybody else have thoughts on this?


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