2002 Jeep KJ rear clunking noise FINALLY cured!!!

[Phil2020]

Hey all,
Just wanted to post a cure all for those with their Jeep KJ's having annoying problems with a clunking noise at the rear of their Jeeps.
After 3 mechanics telling us that it was the rear axle that was opening up from the industry spec ID (1/16 to 1/8 diff), we went further to trouble-shoot this COMMON PROBLEM, this is what we found, (see photos)...

 

[Phil2020]

After doing some research we found that in 99% of all rear clunking sound coming from the rear end of the Jeep the solution was to change the BUSHINGS.
IF YOUR BUSHINGS ARE ANYTHING LIKE THE PHOTOS ABOVE WE SUGGEST YOU CHANGE THEM ALL!!!

At this point, we could not tell which bushings we should change but as you can see from the photos above it was well worth the effort to change ALL 6 bushings even in the upper and lower control arms and the ball-joint too.
Most of them tear after time, and if you can hear any clunking from the rear of your JEEP this is probably the problem!!!
So, the solution is replace these old parts with some of the ones shown below!

Note: You don't have to but we thought we might as well change out the BUMP-STOPS, these are optional but if they look bad it'll prevent problems later on.
IMPORTANT: The Centric 602-58014 Bushings DO NOT FIT ALL KJ Jeeps, check your Jeep BEFORE you order these parts!!!
HOPE THIS HELPS

 

[duderz7]

Best of luck, I have replaced bushings and ball joint in rear uca, didn't take long for the clunk to return. Have an iron rock offroad uca waiting to go in, just haven't had the time.

 

[Phil2020]

That's Cool "duderz7"!!!

I'm running 235/70 r16, standard stock for my KJ Jeep. If you over size your tires your odometer will rack up lower miles.
BTW, is this the setup you had installed?
Did you get the welded or unwelded setup?
See here:

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[tommudd]

That's Cool "duderz7"!!!

I'm running 235/70 r16, standard stock for my KJ Jeep. If you over size your tires your odometer will rack up lower miles.
BTW, is this the setup you had installed?
Did you get the welded or unwelded setup?
See here:

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Not it we use a bolt on kit
and up to 04 you can get your miles to do right
My 04 is two mile an hour off with 32 inch tall tires , and darn near perfect as far as mileage

 

[Phil2020]

How do you get the odometer to set correctly?
When we had over sized tires on before we had to buy an Autel auto machine and re-program it from there.

 

[LibertyTC]

It's called an "odometer calibration" Good shop scanners can re-program for correct tire sizes.
Here are some threads about this topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=jee...er+tires&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1

 

[Mangate]

My bushes were completely destroyed at 140,000 km the inner was separated from the outer shell, the ball joint had about 1/4" of up down movement.
I fitted a cheap Taiwanese arm which has only done about 4,000km so far, but it seems to be holding up. I have pressed Moog bushes and a Moog problem solver ball joint into the old arm, ready for when this cheap one fails.

 

[Phil2020]

Come on Mangate be brave, show us those bashed up bushings, so other people can see

 

[Duster]

I hate that job. I have changed my rear upper control arm more times than I can remember. Not sure if the original or the one I have on now lasted longest. Stock had a little play a long time so probably the one on there now. Backed up an off-camber today and heard it pop pretty loud on the right side. So need to check it.

I had some the ball joint was fine but the body ends blew out so bad all at once it was rattling in the rear fender wells. Literally arm tapping body.

I use it like a 4x4 cargo van. So I have wondered a few times if I should try a different tightening procedure, like replace it, put it on the ground with some load inside and then tighten. Don't know. But if this one is bad on the right body connection, I'm gonna be wondering again.

 

[Aceofspades]

2nd one in 3 years. You can put it I park and have someone (if you can’t do it yourself but I managed to) rock the Jeep back and forth. You can see the drive line move up and down and see the body bushings move back and forth. I’ll upload a video. Probably easiest test I can think of.