I had a mysterious front-end whine that I dealt with as well.

At first I thought it was a wheel bearing, though I found I couldn't change the noise by loading one side or the other, just as you are finding.
I ended up changing the wheel bearings on both sides and it didn't affect the noise at all.

Eventually I disconnected the center (front to back) driveshaft and my noise went away. At first I suspected my bevel gear was toast. I removed my bevel gear and had it inspected (unfortunately) by a trans shop, where I discovered that there was NOTHING in there that looked like it was making a noise.

I later closely inspected the rest of my driveline and found the hanger bearing for the center prop shaft was seized - so I know think that was my culprit. I think the noise was being produced there but travelling up to the front of the car on the driveshaft making it /sound/ like it was coming from up there instead...

Here are the threads where I chronicled my troubles with this:

Front End Whine

Driveshaft Carrier Bearing Questions

FYI Bevel Gear 1998 & 1999 have unique gear ratio

Removed Bevel Gear - comments on the job

info on bevel gear rebuild

Pull your center prop shaft (not hard and not detrimental in any way) and hopefully your noise will go away. If it does I would really check out the center prop shaft hanger bearing.

keep us posted.


-Joel