I live in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I bought a Kia 2700 truck about 3.5 years ago. These trucks cannot be imported into the USA proper as they do not meet such standards as having a rear bumper, etc. It is a four wheel drive, 2.7 liter diesel with a 5 speed transmission, though I have never gotten past third gear on my island. It has 12,000 miles on it. I am a plumber and only use it for business. Last week it started to make a kind of grinding sound coming from the rear, but it only makes this sound when the engine is breaking the truck. If I step on the gas, the clutch, or shift into neutral, the sound disappears. I checked the wheel bearings and the universal joints and they seem to be ok. The 4 wheel drive is working normally. A friend of mine, who is a pretty good mechanic, thinks it might be the bearing where the drive shaft goes into the differential. I just drained the differential gear oil for the first time. The drain magnet had a bit of fine metal hairs on it, but nothing really substantial. What do you think of my friends diagnosis? It?s a long story, but we have about 25 of these Kias on my island ? long story. We brought them in from a neighboring island. Most of them are mini-dump models, though mine is a normal bed, and they were incredibly cheap. They are definitely a light duty truck, read a bit chintzy (though they are official rated for a metric ton load ? 2200 pounds). While they have lots of problems, none of them, to the best of my knowledge, has had this differential bearing go bad.
Thanks in advance.
Yep, I think your friend is correct.
although you already answered your own question in regards to the grinding noise, i want to get more info.
do you have repair manuals for this vehicle?
there are two bearings in the rear end. one takes the thrust from the use of forward. and one takes the thrust from backing up. obviously you have the forward thrust bearing making grinding noise. i don’t know your vehicle. if you can get some repair info share it here, and others can help you interpret the info.
the metal shavings are showing you the problem.
I do not have a repair manual. They are basically unavailable. I tried to get one from the dealer on the other island and he said no way.