Moaning Car?!

[Alexander van Gerbig]

    Of course this starts up the night before a 5 hour drive and a few days
before the turbo conversion starts.

    I'm driving downtown to support my roommate at a guitar competition (of
which he came in second) and I hear this odd whining/moaning from the car.
I've definitely never heard this type of whine from a car before.  It is
almost like a tuning fork is in the trunk of the car.

    I just recently discovered I have a bent stub axle in the rear of the
car.  I had the wheel bearings replaced two months ago in the rear, and
within a month and a half the right rear started vibrating in turns above
75mph, which it still does now.  Though this noise has only one component,
45mph, it doesn't matter if I turn right or left, the car whines.  It
doesn't matter if I'm in gear or not, the car whines.  I am totally baffled,
the car feels very smooth and sweet, no odd handling behaviors, but it has
this horrid humming from the rear at 45mph, and if I change speed by 2mph up
or down the noise disappears.

    The only difference between yesterday and today is a full trunk and a
Thule rack went up top.  I thought it was the rack, but this the whole car
humming.  Then I thought it was the bad wheel bearing/stub axle, but no
difference when I turn left or right.  No association to RPM at all, just
45mph on the dot.  The trans shifts smoothly, so hopefully not a whining
trans or diff, plus it runs Redline.  Everything runs normally, but just the
whining in the rear, or so it seems to be from the rear, very ambiguous
noise.  Anyone have a clue?

TIA!

Alexander van Gerbig -- '88 80

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