Almost surely your front driveshaft.

That's very dangerous. You need to check the Ujoints in the driveshaft. If they fail it can cause a lot of very expensive and dangerous damage.

 

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge. What am I looking for when looking at the Ujoints?

 

Probably a stupid question, but the service manual only shows one Hookes type u-joint in the rear drive shaft (connecting the dshaft to the rear diff). Where are the u-joints in the front driveshaft?

This is the rear driveshaft:


This is the front:


Called my local guy to see if they'd be able to do this, but they're closed until the 10th because everyone is @ Sturgis!

 

...and the hits just keep on coming. Latest and greatest here:

The noise is DEFINITELY coming from the rear, so probably the u-joint.

ALSO I now have a "grinding" noise coming from the front left quadrant when turning the wheel to the right. Usually happens around the 2 o'clock position. Honestly sounds like some rusted metal scraping against other rusted metal. Sounds horrible.

This may be past my mechanical abilities, so I'll be taking this thing into an independent tomorrow. Thanks for all your input!

 

Update here for future searching on this subject:

Took her to a independent shop. Drive shaft and u-joint are fine. Guy said he has never had to replace a u-joint on one of these (2006 v6 4.0L).

The culprit? Front left hub/bearing assembly. Guy said the thing is non-existent and I'm lucky it didn't dick up my brakes. So there's my grinding noise, and he said that this would likely solve the chirping. They even keep these assemblys in stock because they see this so often. $625 to replace the hub/bearing assembly.

Other chirping culprit could be my rear rotors due to "lot rot" (just bought this 3 weeks ago from a dealer).

Anyway, we'll see on the chirping. Also, for anyone in the WI/IL area, place is called The Euro Shop, guy's name is Glenn. Very knowledgeable (he's a Master LR tech), got me in right away even though they were busy. I'd def. recommend him.

 

Glad you figured it out. Sorry it such an expensive fix! Also, sorry I said front when I meant back but I was wrong either way.

 

you can get LR3 hubs for less than $100, 2 for $120. so unless it is a factory replacement hub it sound expensive.jmho

 

Good to know for the future! They are factory replacements, btw. Also, super glad I brought it in because I learned a lot about other things that are good and not so good on the vehicle.

 

No worries. All that driveshaft talk is what got me worried enough to bring it in in the first place, so thank you!