CV axle?

No offense taken. They are/will be involved, distance makes it a little more challenging, we were going to loosen and re-torque this weekend, but weather and time didn’t allow. One of them heard it happen, and then we both looked at things, and he suggested the CV axle. Was very clear, that he was not sure. The cv would be an experiment, thinking being if it didn’t fix the issue, I’d have a spare cv now. Part of me is thinking, if I could upgrade the cvs to something better, might be worth it. But I’d rather not throw money at the problem. I’ll be connecting with someone again in a few weeks, hoping to have needed parts available.

 

This may be waay out there but I had a time with my 3rd gen exhibited a loud pop kind of sound. Turns out it was the travel stop rubbing at near/full lock. Since you’ve lifted your rig your front end geometry has changed from factory and it’s possible that any castor angle change may exacerbate this.

 

Sounds like you have a good plan. And I get where you’re coming from regarding trying out a new CV and having the happy accident of having a spare if it wasn’t the problem.

If you end up thinking it might be the CV after checking other low-hanging fruit, I don’t think there’s a clear “upgrade” to the CV axles. You can get the high angle ones mentioned before, but those are usually done for long travel setups. And I’ve heard the boots for those can be a pain. So even though they are much more expensive, they don’t sound as trouble free as OE CVs. Also, you’ld probably need to do both. (Two spare CVs!, lol).

OE CVs are not cheap to begin with, but it’s because they are very good. Aftermarket ones, even if there are good ones, may not be as good as OE in terms of metallurgy, design, or manufacturing. The boots are also good, as well as the grease. I can see potentially breaking a stock CV if you’re doing some hardcore crawling at full steering lock on grippy rocks, but they are very unlikely to be worn (unless a boot has been torn open for a while).

Somebody already mentioned that a bad CV would make a sound once every revolution. But now that I think about it, I’m not sure how noisy a bad CV would be if it was undriven in 2wd. Checking it while turning tight while in 4wd though is not something I’d love doing unless I was on sand.

Another thing…somebody else mentioned sounds from other sources like the steering stop. You could inspect the face of the stop for witness marks.

Here’s the funny thing…I have a similar knock I’ve noticed the last few days. I’m pretty sure it’s the jigsaw plates of my 4xInnovation skid plate system shifting a bit while turning hard. Aftermarket skid plates can make noise. If it’s just that, no big deal. But I guess I’ll also be taking a look-see to make sure nothing is out of wack during my next oil change.

Geez, sorry for the stream of consciousness lol.

 

Had a pop that sounded a lot like OP's. Was driving me nuts.

Ended up being the LCA cam bolt. It was torqued to spec (129 ft-lbs) but for some reason it was still popping. Had me convinced it was a CV.
I over torqued the LCA cam bolt to 160 ft-lbs and the problem went away. I still think it was a band aid solution... maybe those bushings are worn?

Regardless the noise is gone now and I'm happy about it. lol

 

Can the OEM CV axles be rebuilt?

 

In general, yes. Not sure if mine can or not.

 

This a good reference to see what’s involved with a re-boot of an otherwise undamaged CV. Not sure if that’s what you mean by rebuilding them.

I doubt that you could or should be replacing bad bearings in the spider since everthing else they touch would need to be new as well. It gets mighty close to rebuilding an axe by replacing both the head and handle.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YH5Cf...vdyBhd2F5IHlvdXIgY3YgYXhsZXMgY2FyIGNhcmUgbnV0

 

there are a few companies that offer remanufactured ones, most want the you to return your OEM "Cores" so they can remanufacture those and sell.