My hubs looked similar to yours when I replaced the IWEs on both sides at about 45K. I've had no noise/problems since I repaced the IWEs and solenoid back then, and am now at about 86K. (I also greased the daylights out of everything like you) I re-used all the original (cheap bast@rd) nuts and have had no problems.

 

Replaced the actuators today and it made no difference as far as noise and grinding feeling goes. Tried to put it in 4hi when i was moving and it made a weird noise. Tomorrow i will start trouble shooting.

 

Did you look at the hub gears to see if they are damaged? If you replaced the IWEs and it still grinds in 2WD, then they are not getting proper vacuum. That means the solenoid, check valves, vacuum lines, or vacuum reservoir is bad. Check vacuum at each IWE, one at a time, with the engine running in 2WD.

 

The hub gears didn't look to bad which was actually surprising. I have to get my hands on one of those tools then I can start checking the vacuum like you said.

 

Ok, meanwhile unplug the vacuum line that goes from the engine to the IWE solenoid on the firewall. Cap off the engine side. That will (should) fully engage the hubs, no matter if you are in 2WD or 4WD. It won't hurt anything but fuel economy to run this way. If the grinding goes away, then you know you have a vacuum problem somewhere between the engine and one or both IWEs. If the grinding persists, make sure each IWE is bolted to the steering knuckle properly. Make sure the axle end nut was installed and torqued to 20 ft-lbs. After that, I'd suspect the hubs as being bad.

 

Ok will do. Also, when I took my calipers off I took the whole assembly off and I'm noticing now that others do it differently. I can see in the pics that part of the calliper remains on. I have not done breaks before so I just assumed I was doing it right.

 

Yeah, you don't need to remove the carrier or rotor unless the steering knuckle is too heavy to maneuver for you. You only remove the caliper because the brake hoses don't have enough slack to let the steering knuckle move out far enough to to get the half shaft out of the hub.

 

Don't mean to steal the thread but just 1 question, what. Are you using to grease everything with. I feel like I need to do this asap.

 

Ok thanks, good to know. On a side note those caliper anchor bolts were fun to break loose.

 

I used lithium hi-temp wheel bearing grease. Any wheel bearing grease will do, this is just what I had on the shelf.