FYP

Gear oil is awful awful stuff.

^^^^

I call the non synthetic liquid dinosaur.

U- joints first..if that's not it..front differential...

Heh. She said that the noise went away after a few minutes. Maybe climbing up to the divide warmed things up...

I don't recall the last time I've read hitherto in a sentence and I read quite often.

Just crank the radio....you'll be a'ight

Do you think it was the homeless child she was dragging under the car or the dog tied to the rear bumper?

It could have been either, I suppose. Probably kept up for a few miles, too.

if you thought u-joint gauges are real you need to just take the thing to a shop and get it properly checked

Will they have a U-joint gauge checker?

ya, it's called twisting the driveshaft by hand.

Will that make the warning light come on? I could give that a try before taking it to the shop.

try the pizza stone

If there's slop in the driveshaft it will be obvious. If there's a cv shaft that's bad at one of the wheels it's not so obvious.