Sooooo...doing a little trail cruising with my JK today, and was having a blast! Some nice rocky trails, climbs, mud, river fording, etc.. Nothing TOO horrible, I thought - no dents, no pieces of the Jeep left on the trail. Towards the end, though, after some kind of intense articulation over rocks (for a stocker, anyway), my suspension developed a "click". It's kind of a click/creak noise when I go over bumps with the wheels turned a bit. It won't do it when the wheels are straight-on unless it's a LARGE bump, but with wheels turned, I can reproduce it almost at will. It doesn't do it when driving normally.

I've looked under the body and I don't see anything obviously broken or dangling, and the handling and suspension seems to function very well. I just dont know what that CLICK noise is. It does seem to be related to lateral body movement over the suspension. Does anyone have any idea what might be happening here? I'd sure appreciate any ideas you all might have!

 

But... I developed a click of sorts when turning after i had some extreme articulation too. Seems it was the brake line rubbing against the tire. Extreme articulation took the line out of it's normal "kink". You know, how when you go to roll up a hose and it wants naturally to go one way when you want it to go the other... same thing happened here. I had to twist it back to the natural "kink" and zip tie it.

 

Thanks for some quick responses - but:

1. No sticks or wheel obstacles, just checked thouroughly.

2. I don't see any rubbing with the brake lines - they are nicely out of the way and still firmly attached to the OEM brackets.

It's a rather loud, sharp, metallic CLICK - sounds almost like it's coming from the front sway or somthing. It's definately coming from the front - wife said it sounds every time like it's coming from underneath, about a foot back from the front bumper. I just don't actually SEE anything wrong there.



You know, maybe a "creak" is a better description - short, loud and sharp. Definately metallic.

 

make sure the bolts are tight on your sway bar links... alternatively, i will crawl up under my jeep every once in a while and just lay there looking at every square inch... poking... prodding...

 

Check the sway bar bracket welds very closely.

 

I'd agree w/the above bolt tightening... and defenitely check your track bar. That seems to be one of the more common areas that need periodic checking. So check the following and tighten:

Sway Bar links (I honestly doubt this is it though)
Track Bar (good chance this is it)
Control Arms (probably isn't this either)

 

Definitely check the trackbar. On both my cherokees the track bar bolt at the axle would loosen a little bit after wheeling and I would get a clunk when I would turn the wheel and hit a bounce. I havent had this on the JK yet, but Im almost obsessive with checking it.

 

That defenitely sounds like a track bar needing tightened...

 

Thanks for all the replies, folks

Well, I went under and tightened everything - well, tried to. Everything felt pretty good, actually, and I really saw nothing wrong. But it's not making the noise anymore, either, so all's well that ends well. I don't really feel like I did much of anything, but good enough!

Thanks again, guys - always appreciate help in a pinch

 

Wouldn't hurt to actually get a torque wrench out for the track bar... 125 ft-lbs is quite a bit... at least I thought it was...