My buddy was telling me that he was messing around in some mud puddles the other day after it rained and one of them was fairly bigger than the other ones. After that he said he started noticing that there was a noise like a clunking sound coming from the front of his truck but only when the 4x4 was engaged. Does anyone know what it could be?

 

might be front axle shafts

 

What year is the vehicle. If pre 97, it could be any of the u-joints. Or hubs. If 97-03, it could be u-joints or CV joints. If 04 up it could be u-joints, cv joints, or IWE's.

 

My bad I forgot to put his truck model: 06 KingRanch 4x4

 

"a clunking noise from the front" could be one of a million things. Literally, the posibilities are endless. Need to crawl under it and see whats going on. See if you can get it clunk while your touching stuff, see if you can feel where it comes from, or at leat hear, and pin-point. Check driveshaft, u joints, rear shackle, etc etc etc. just start checking parts and looking around. Could just be the truck, some light clunking, and nothing to worry about. How severe is it ? How loud ? Does it jerk the whole truck when it "clunks" or do ya just hear it ? a heat shield might have got bent, and is slightly touching the front drive shaft. Could be, if he is lifted, the front driveshaft hitting the front sway bar. Does he have a lift ???? what kind ? Tire size ? gearing ?

I could go on and on, but lets start here and see whats up.

 

Its completely stock lift, tires and wheels. We're gonna check it out tomorrow since he's gotta work all day today. I'll do what you recommended, we were gonna start with the cv's and u-joints and I guess we'll go from there. Thanks MT.

 

of course man, here to help, but these "noise" thread are hard sometimes. Really can be anything, and a "clunk" to you, might be a "thud" to me !

Best advice I could give, is to try and find out "when" the clunk happens. Over bumps ? only when turning ? Only turning right ? Turning right while hitting a bump at a certain speed and clickin your shoes ? (kidding). But if you can single out a "when" that also might help give ya a clue to where the noise keeps coming from.

If ya need any more ideas as for what to check out, post back ! Or if ya find anything, let us know. Good luck bud.