Have a 2017 Lariat. I went through a whole ordeal with the IWEs early last year and decided to get IWE delete rings and at the same time my front differential was noisy. The bearings and races were pitted to hell, the noise is there when the truck is in 2nd, and completely disappears in 4wd. Got a used front differential pulled from another truck this past Feb and all was good. But the same exact issue started cropping up in the last few weeks and it got really bad last night and this morning.

I use this truck for work daily running swimming pool routes, so can’t be without it. I’m thinking of draining all the diff fluid out, pulling the cv axles, and pulling the front driveshaft, so that it’s not turning at all, and for now just my render my truck to be a 2wd for the time being till winter or if I decide to sell it. Will this work alright? I don’t think the cv shafts really add any support to the wheel hubs anyways.

 

I would start by turning 4x4 dial to 4A. It will keep iwe's engaged, and see if sound goes away. My guess it will, and it is fine to drive like that. If yes, it could be a simple checkvalve. It would be (and maybe was) rare for the front diff to go bad, especially twice. Good luck, let us know if 4A cured noise.

 

I don’t have the IWE’s anymore, I installed delete rings to get rid of the issues I had with those, and already capped off the lines. 4A doesn’t really do much for it anyways, as it only applies torque to the front wheels under acceleration, and then takes away the torque when just cruising along or decelerating.