I found this board by mistake. My buddy just bought a new bronco (1996) It has the 5.4 4x4. it has about 69k on it. He loves the truck but everytime he would take off from a start, it would clunk, then just while it was coming to a stop, clunk again! He took it to 4 different mechanics and got anywhere from bad u-joints to a bad transfer case due to a stretched chain? Estimates were from 125.00 for the joints (all four) to 680.00 for a transfer case rebuild. He came over to the house real bummed out, he spent all of his money on the truck and couldnt possibly spend any more on it right now but the noise was absolutely driving him crazy. My forst approach is always to get online and look for others with the same problem. That's how I found you guys/gals. Through the search, I found that it was either bad u-joints or a dry slip on the driveshaft. we went out to the garage and lifted the truck and I inspected the u-joints and found all four to be good. then removed the dust boot from the rear driveshaft and it was as dry as a desert, we took it off and gave it a health dose of good grease and slapped it back in. My buddy just left here with a big load off of his chedt. The clunk is gone. Right now he thinks that I am a master mechanic! that's ok thought, as long as he thinks that, I will be getting free beer from him LOL. Once again, Thanks for your posts and good information. i may never come back here but I am sure that there are a lot of transient people that use the site and never say thanks. So here it is. THANKS

 

I THINK THE 96 BRONCO WAS THE 5.0 AND 5.8 V8S NOT THE 4.6, 5.4 SERIES.

 

And you are exactly right, they came in the 4.9, 5.0 and 5.8, not the 4.2, 4.6 and 5.4