Immediately after getting the F37 done (April-07 at dealer 'A') I noticed a rattle noise when the torque converter locked up. No big deal at the time, I knew that one of the hardware changes was a less isolative torque converter damper. I figured that the increased engine torsionals were 'lighting off' something in the dashboard. I lived with it until this last fall when it began to bother me.

Lately it was getting worse so I began asking around at work and was told that it's relatively common to preload one of the engine mounts when doing transmission work and that could cause a rattle.

Unrelated to that I noticed an odd pull in the brakes. A fairly hard push on the pedal would pull to the left, but only for a second. After I adjusted, the pull wasn't there and I had to readjust again. This led to a single little shimmy every time I hit the brakes.

The Saturday (last Saturday) before I had to leave (for work) for three consecutive weeks the brakes completely failed. Not wanting to leave the car broken down for three weeks I took it to the closest dealership to my house (dealer 'B') and left a note with my wife describing the brake failure, scheduling some maintenance, and asking them to look at the engine mounts and fix the rattle.

The brake failure turned out to be the hard hydraulic line going from the ABS juction box to the right front wheel. A small hole had abraded in it. The 'temporary' pulling was due to that particular line not being able to generate pressure to apply the caliper at the same time as the left front. Eventually the wear condition completely failed the line and all the fluid ended up on the ground.

The maintenance was no issue except for typical stealership pricing.

The 'engine mount' rattle turned out to be something completely a pain. Dealership B claimed that all the passenger side bolts that fix the transmission bellhousing to the engine block were installed finger tight by dealership A and had backed out. B was of course willing to perform the work, but they would hit my AMEX considerably for it. So I called A and asked if they would send someone to B and allow B to fix it becuase at this point I didn't want A touching my happy tractor ever again. Of course A replied that B had to finish their work and I would have to take it to A for them to inspect. In the end I had A pick the vehicle up from B and take it back and inspect at A. (Remember I'm coordinating all of this while trying to do my day job 7 states away in Delaware.)

Dealership A poo-poohed the claims of dealership B (who at this point still has not provided photographic proof of their claim), performed a CYA fix and returned the vehicle to me yesterday with no charge.

It's quiet and it stops now. If there is any damage to the torque converter / pump, it just has to last another year till the whole tractor is paid off and I can being applying my payment money to saving up for a suncoast, F37 pump kit, and Frankenlift II.

As a reminder if your CRD starts pulling oddly to the left, inspect the hard brake line going to the right front wheel through it's entire length for wear. I'm not exactly sure what it was rubbing on and haven't had a chance to crawl under it yet that will happen after it gets warmer (they put my front suspension skid back up in stock location where it hits the front diff - gotta move that back down with spacers.)

I'll also try get some pictures of the brake line posted.

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2005 CRD Limited Flame Red w/ Renegade rock rails & light bar, AirLift 1000. 225/75R16 MT/R's on cheap black steel wheels, dual MOPAR subwoofers, Ipod kit & seat covers, Samco hoses - totaled and gone. 2008 WK Laredo 3.0L diesel - AirLift 1000, wife won't let me mess with it much. 2013 JK Sahara on order.