Front diff Groan/rumble clamshell already installed

Hey everyone, need some help diagnosing.
I have a 2018 off-road, it has 5.29 nitro gears and I had the arb air locker installed in the front at the same time. Lately i noticed some groaning at certain speeds coming from the oh so common drivers front.

I jacked up the front and spun that driver side wheel and it sounds like a typical wheel bearing groan, but the noise is coming from the differential side of the cv, not the wheel side. Wheel passes the shake down test and the passenger side is smooth as can be.

When the shop did the gears and locker they had to replace the needle bearing with the clamshell, so the needle bearing is ruled out I’d think. Could this groan be the cv going out? I haven’t gotten any cv clicking noise, wondering if there is a diff bearing that could be going out too.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

First. Have you taken your concerns to the shop yet? There have been a few gear upgrade disasters posted here recently. Are you able to do some wrenching yourself?

 

I have not yet. I have roughly 17,000 miles on the gears. Can definitely do some wrenching myself. Just differentials is the shop that did the install here in Washington.

 

The needle bearing lives inside the stock carrier which is removed for the ARB install. The ARB carrier design uses bushings. The only bearings in the diff are the two carrier bearings and the two pinion bearings. Carrier bearing would be a very unusual failure. I'd check fluid level and then pull the cv and inspect it first.

 

I recently put an ARB in mine... The noise you're describing sounds like it might the same noise I hear, it's the spider gears constantly rolling as the driverside axle spins. I'm still running the stock A30 all-season tires, so I can hear it pretty clearly right about 30 MPH or so, but I suspect the noise of offroad tires will completely mask it once I get those on.
With 2K miles so far, the noise has not changed in any way whatsoever since installing it.

If I had to guess, ARB doesn't put the same level of NVH research into their differentials as OEMs normally do (probably since they're selling product to a niche offroad market rather than to the population in general, they don't need to).

I still would suggest check the condition of your fluid though just to make sure you don't have a bigger issue developing (especially if this is a new noise that just started happening and you've had the ARB installed for awhile).

 

Thanks for the input on this. Sounds very similar to what I am experiencing. Ive noticed this for the past several months (sounds bad that im just addressing it lol) but it hasnt changed or gotten any "worse", I just think I have been paying more attention to it lately.

Ill definitely re check my fluid, ive been battling my diff breather seeping gear oil after this arb/gear install but it seems to self correct itself to a certain level.