Hello all. I recently bought a 2005 suburban, with GT5 ratio, AWD model. I was driving it home from purchase thinking it had a bad driver side bearing. Then i hard a few clunks from the front end, toward the driver side and then just free spin (almost like grinding gears and going no where.). Had to get towed, and now i can move it around my driveway in idle but any kind of torque it will let loose and do the same thing. Also loud clunks if turning while moving from the same area. I unbolted the cv shafts and the driver side output shaft on the differential has some decent play up and down play, so I am thinking that was the bearing noise i heard, and it got bad enough to strip internal gears? My question is when it happened the rear wheels stopped too, its almost like i went into neutral. Is there a safety feature on these that will put the transfer case into neutral if there is an issue? Just don't want to drop money into another front differential if there is more going on. Any help would be appreciated.
thanks!

 

bump, anyone?

 

I would put your scanner on it and see what comes back with your 4WD. I just recently replaced my Transfer Case Motor, when i bought a replacement TCCM the first one was bad. I did not know until hooking up my scanner and it came back with no communication with TCCM. I used my scanner to confirm the TCCM was not communicating. I use the Autel Bluetooth scanner, great scanner, got it on eBay for $50 or so dollars. I assume you still have a front actuator as well if those go bad they can do some craziness with your front diff.