Ticking from rear end.

Hey guys, in the last month I've started to get a ticking noise from the rear axle of my KK. I've just past 110k miles so if there's anything common let me know. It happens when braking and can be heard from 20 mph to stop. I have some play in the drivers side axle shaft. Grabbing the tire from the top and shaking forward to back in relation to the tire produces a nice thunk thunk sound that can't be replicated on the passenger side. I'm also getting a shimmy in reverse if backing up s slight incline. So question is rear axle going bad? Or something simple I'm missing like a u joint or something? Ideas if you have them appreciated.

Since it happens when braking I would investigate whether your brake pads/rotors need replacing, and whether the metal dust shield behind the rotor has rusted and bent so it contacts the rotor. When was the last time the brakes were replaced? Having something making contact or a caliper sticking may cause your shimmy in reverse also.

There is always a little in/out play with the axle shafts because of how they are held in with C clips inside of the differential. Hearing you have a little play there doesn’t set off any alarm bells for me.

Should have mentioned I did brakes all the way around when I bought it last year. I'll pull it apart and check everything again though.

U-Joints usually do one of two things, either you hear a chirp chirp chirp etc going slow through parking lot etc, or they make no noise at all and you have to remove driveshaft to see if they are froze in one position ( or just drive 10 miles, crawl under and feel the u-joint, will be hot to the touch
Since you did brakes recently I would look more towards a clip or something small that slid off, not installed properly or what Mr. Howard stated. He's good at these issues and has owned a KK for a long time now

Tom, good idea on the clip! I’ve had one of those little metal clips that the brake pad slides in fall off before, and it does cause the pad to shimmy slightly back and forth with every rotation, worse when braking. It was on the drivers side rear and I could especially hear the noises when driving next to a concrete median barrier that reflected the noise back at me. Easier to hear with the windows down of course. It wasn’t a safety issue but sure was annoying.

When I get back in town I plan to check everything thoroughly. I have to do e-brake shoes anyway. Parts store didn't have them in stock when I did the brakes. Had to do the brakes because previous owner didn't install the shims and hardware kit. I also hit the u joint with a thermal gun after driving it to check it out. I checked them before because the Jeep has had excessive play when putting it in drive but found nothing wrong with them.

^^^ e-brake shoes/tension are another good hypothesis. The e-brake never seems to be adjusted quite right on any KK, including mine. Fixing that is on my to-do list as well.

Update, brakes we're the issue. Specifically the Drivers side rear caliper. It is dragging just enough to heat the rotor up over time. I assume once it has enough heat a small warp in the rotor causes it to grab making the caliper grab and hit against the shims producing the tick sound. The rotor was running 30-50 degrees hotter than the passenger side. So ordering parts and will probably do 2 rear calipers and rotors plus parking brake shoes.

Finally getting back to this, man the parking brake shoes look like a PITA. But off topic, I made a trip to my local pull-a-part because they aquired a 2010 liberty to the yard and I like to hoard parts and I noticed they also brought in a CRD Liberty, not sure of the year, that still has it's axles intact. Do all CRD's have the 4.10 gears? And if so will they fit into a KK Liberty?

Hi John P.
The CRD Liberties don’t have the 4.10 gears, it’s the 4 cylinder KJ’s that do. But even if you found one, the KJ axles cannot be installed on a KK. Sorry for the bad news.

Well that *****. I probably won't do a gear swap. Only planning on going 245/75's

John P. said:

Well that *****. I probably won't do a gear swap. Only planning on going 245/75's

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That’s the tire size I have. You will lose some power and mpg but it’s doable and just not quite annoying enough to do the regear when there are other important things in the budget. I baby my transmission though and I could see how not regearing could stress it out if not driven with this in mind.