Well, I finally broke down and took it into a rover mechanic to have them find out what the little grinding noise is... Its a very faint noise coming from the center console of the vehicle and happens in N upon start up and eventually goes away and only occurs when in gear and during acceleration. The shifts and everything else are normal... it is just very WEIRD! The mechanics thought it might be a bad drive line or u-joint, only to find out there was nothing wrong with them. They were not able to recreate the noise when the vehicle is running and spinning the wheels while on the lift which, baffles me. They said that they were only able to re-create it while driving it on the road. My thoughts are that it is the torque converter.... Tomorrow they are going to drain the transmission and t-case fluid to see if there are little metal shavings at the bottom and to see the quality of the oil. I found that the front tires are bald on the inside which indicate alignment issues, could this cause the problem? At any rate, it will be interesting to see what comes up tomorrow. Any comments are greatly appreciated, as it may save me a fortune! lol

 

The torque converter is more of a all or nothing part so I would not say that is it. WHat year is the truck? I would have though a u joint or somethine too right off the bat but maybe some more info would help. Good Luck.

 

Its a 96 with 160k on the clock.