Well this one continues to elude resolution. They pulled the valve body, its fine, the pump adapter was cracked, it was replaced so they say, and still the issue persists. The inside of the pan and valve body looked fine, nothing on the magnet, fluid looked good, no real obvious issues. 20K miles with this issue so far, and other than wasting money, no fix yet. They still think its the E clutch, which after 20k miles I would have expected to show damage or at least getting worse, but no.
As for the transfer case, it doesnt seem to be spinning, as this sound can come at the 4th, 5th or 6th shift point ( I should mention I used to think it was only at 5th gear, but realised it was at 4th [just noticeable] and mainly 5th. When I did a really hard acceleration I noticed its identical at 4th 5th and 6th shift points, but you really have to be hard, hard, hard on the throttle]). Maybe it is the E clutch some how, though most of the time the noise only shows at the 5th gear shiftpoint. Still sounds like the transfer case or shifting into 4wd, but that makes no sense if when accelerating really hard you get it 3 times in a row. Frankly, I am now wondering about mounts.
Oh well, another 20K miles might make it more obvious.
