Clunking sound while turning in 4wd hi

There was a dump of snow yesterday and it was the first time I used the 4wd extensively on the way to work. I noticed a couple of times when turning there was a very noticeable clunking or thumping sound. It disappeared immediately once I straightened out. This was during normal left turns on the street, nothing tight radius like a parking lot. The roads were mostly snow covered and slippery so I would assume there was enough slippage to avoid drivetrain binding? Or maybe I should give the rugged trails some credit for relatively decent grip. The truck wasn't too bad in 2wd either, I used it on the freeways and switched to 4wd in the neighborhoods with unplowed streets. The traction control kicked in a few times in 2wd and you could feel it cutting power to the engine and the light blinking on the dash. So what's making these noises in 4wd, normal or not?

 

Given your description it's the 4wd binding while turning. Even in slippery conditions the 4wd can have some slight binding.

And no, give no credit to the rugged fails. Terrible tires.

 

Some binding and noise while using 4wd is normal

 

OK good to know it's normal, not accustomed to these strange noises. A co worker with a new GMC Sierra SLE mentioned having a feature called autotrac and boasted about it. Apparently he just switches the selector knob to auto and the 4x4 works like awd and there's no need to worry about binding. Not sure how that functions, I thought the GM full size trucks were part time 4wd systems like ours without a centre diff.

 

It could also be a bad U joint from not using the 4X4 enough.