Sound? What sound?

[90Xjay]

Okay, time for me to come clean here and admit something. No I am not coming out of the closet!

This is actually funny, in retrospect, to me.

So, on the way to the lake on Monday around noonish, with some friends and their boat, me and my tribe are in the XJ, safari rack loaded. I started hearing a high pitched sound, like a bearing squeel. I had the windows down and the A/C off, it was so nice out. I noticed it above speeds of 35MPH only and only at light load. If I pressed the pedal down slightly more, no noise, if I backed off totally, no noise.
Well, ole 90's thinking, U-joint or other drive-line issue. We went on and even done about 20 minutes of wheeling on the way home. Today, I pulled the jeep in and put the rear axle on jack stands and dropped it in drive and got it up to 35, no noise, then after some head scratching, I got under neath and checked the U-joints, they seemed ok, but just to be sure a cap had not gone dry or something I pulled the shaft and put it in the vise to check it further. I cleaned the joints off and found out that they were heavy duty spicers, (cool). They seemed fine and I even pulled the caps off of the tail shaft end, dropped it, and lost about half of the needles, got on hands and knees found all of them, cleaned and re-installed them, (this time I taped the stinking caps back in place).

I can't find any problems.... I greased them up good and re-installed the driveshaft. Huh?
We went to my friends house that evening for a visit and I asked him to go for a quick ride to see what he thought.
After a few miles, he could hear it good. I could play with the gas pedal and really make it more pronounced. When we would pass a medium concrete divider, the sound would amplify and there was no dout it was there.

Then, he said these magic words..........
What about that new cone air filter and intake mod you just done?
Turns out, the day I noticed the noise is the first trip at highway speeds, with the windows down since I installed the intake and new filter. The sound is the whistle sound the throttle body makes normally, it is just way more noticable with the new intake and filter with no air box.

I had to laugh at myself

I hope you do to

humbled, yet happy and wiser,

90

[jps4jeep]

HAHA

But I know the pain !

[jeepless20]

man thats good. at least it wasnt any part of the rear diff. man, now that would have really been bad. all i have to say is wheeew.

[Sully]

You got off easy and yes I did chuckle just a little bit.

[jay79cj7]

I know the sound you speak of... My old roommate put that type of air filter on his XJ. He was following me in my CJ one time and it sounded like a motorcycle was coming up on me.

[mingez]

Isn't it cool?