Brother mfc8440 clicking sounds while printing

Check there is nothing in the fuser at the back, and that the fuser will turn (CAREFUL it may be hot) Pull the drum and toner unit out, and separate the two components. Check the Developer roller on the front of the toner cartridge turns smoothly and quietly. Any noise is bad. Check the cylinder in the drum unit also turns smoothly. (turn it with the gear, don't put fingers on the cylinder itself). Put it all back together and listen for noise when the machine winds up. a loud ratchety noise usually indicates the gear train is under too much load and is often caused by a strain on the drum rotor.

Most likely the dryer drum rollers are worn out.

sounds very much like the bearing has seized on the drum.
can you turn it by hand?
I'm betting it's either stuck or REALLY stiff

Take out the drum and toner shut the door and power up, if the noise is still there during the power up short run, you probably need a new fuser. If the noise goes away with toner and drum removed you probably need a new toner. New ones, especially generic toners are too hard to turn and make that noise.

Hi, prossible cause, tray not seated properly. If it is not seen by the mfc it will remain in manual mode.

Did the noise start right after you replaced a toner? If so it must be a bad toner which is causing the gears to grind. If this noise happened out of the blue then it might be a bad fuser drive gear which is the gears that connect the fuser to the machine.

Could be a fuser gear is broken or a Toner gear is about to break. Needs TLC by a Authorized Tech.

For that model, the toner container and the drum unit are seperate items. It sounds like the drum unit is bound up.

Hi dermtex,
since the faint lines are vertical, I think there is some thing distored the laser beam, try clean the lenses of the laser unit by clean soft cloth.
hope this helpful for you,
thanks

Hamedo