1990 B2 4x4 100K miles LT215/75x15 tires no lift

Clicking noise coming from the rear. Hear it when pulling out. Road noise may be preventing me from hearing it at higher speeds. Not sure if it goes away at higher speeds or not. Original thought was the adjuster on rear brakes. Not that as far as I can tell. Brakes were done last summer. Hard to troubleshoot since it needs to be moving to replicate the noise. Any ideas?

Thanks
Ron

 

it could be alot of different things..such as wheel bearings,u-joints,rear axle pinion gears,tranny..i would jack it up and support it on jackstands and have a helper underneath while running to try and find the noise..i had to do the same with my 72 f100 and found noise to be the rear end. hope this helps

 

Your symptoms are consistent with the symptoms I had when the CV joints on my driveshaft were going. Can I assume you still have the original CV style driveshaft? I didn't replace the shaft immediately, and the CV joints deteriorated to where it would vibrate real bad under acceleration. I finally replaced it when the CV boot ripped. Mine went at about 100K miles.
I've heard it reported that the rear CV joint (at the axle) is the one that tends to go out first, and sometimes you can rotate the driveshaft end for end and the noise will go away (temporarily). I'm not sure really how diagnostic this is. I do know that you don't want to be going down the highway when that CV shaft fails completely/fall off.
I really wish I had a good idea for testing.
It seems that, at that age and with the symptoms you describe, if you still have the stock CV d-shaft, perhaps the best thing to do is to get a new driveshaft. When I did mine, it was a lot cheaper to get a driveline shop to make a new U-joint style driveshaft than to find a rebuilt CV style shaft. Those I talked to said that, unless you planned to lift it at all, then a single cardan d-shaft would be adequate. A double cardan d-shaft would be better, and probably essential if you planned to lift the truck at all.

 

After driving a while, slide under the truck and put your hand on the joints. If they are noticably hotter than the driveshaft, they are shot.

 

Still have the CV style. I was leaning towards the driveshaft after reading the forum. I'm assuming if the bearings are bad I should still feel the CV joint hotter than the rest of the shaft? Will check that tonight. My son drives it and I would not want him getting stranded somewhere. All the time I have spent under the hood on cars I have never heard a noise like this. Then again I have never had a car with a CV driveshaft before either. My brother bought the B2 new and gave it to my son when he started driving. You know what they say about free things! So far it has cost us about 2K!

 

If the driveshaft IS in fact bad, you might as well spend the extra $$$ (if any, they're both close in price) on a double-cardan u-joint style rear driveshaft. The benefit(s) of this are: easier to maintain, one u-joint (even all three) won't cost as much to replace in the future, and if you want to lift the suspension more than two inches, you don't have to spend the money for the driveshaft as you will already have it That's just my $0.02

 

If your going for the replacment shaft go to the mountain http://www.mountaindriveline.com/partsdeptbroncomtn.htm
Great place I called them and found out that he builds them himself does a great job and you get the full size bronco u joints. You will need a 12 point 12 mm spline socket for the bolts and they are thread locked so get ready for some pita bolts.

 

If you raise the rear wheels and leave the handbrake off, transmission in neutral and front wheels chocked you should be able to rotate the driveshaft by hand and judge whether or not it's the CV joints. In my experience the rear CV joint is the one that goes bad. It should be most noticeably abberrant when you turn the driveshaft one way, stop, then turn it the other way.

Alternatively you could raise one rear wheel only and have a helper spin that tire.

I wouldn't crawl underneath a running vehicle that's only supported by jackstands.

 

here is a little bit of my experience. I had one of those CV styls driveshafts on my '86 after blowing it up 4 times I went to my parts BII and robbed the U-Joint styls drive shaft off of it and had it rebuild at my local drveline place and I have tourtured that thing since and it works fine.

 

Hey guys. I have the same problem with my CV Drive shaft, makes all kinds of noise and I just hate CV drive shafts to begin with. I have 2 questions.

1. Would this drive shaft be good? It comes up for my B2 and looks like a NON CV style driveshaft http://www.napaonline.com/masterpage...veshaft+-+Rear

2. What does Double Cardan mean?

 

1) As near as I can tell, that looks like a basic single cardan driveshaft. Napa doesn't list a length -- that could be an important piece of information for them to ask for. Especially if I were ordering over the internet, I'd want to make sure they were sending me the right length driveshaft. Over the years, there were a few different stock configurations for the BII that necessitated a few different length driveshafts were used. Basically, that's the kind of driveshaft I put in my BII.

2. Single cardan is like the above Napa driveshaft: one u-joint at each end.
Double cardan (sometimes also referred to as a CV joint) has a single u-joint at the axle end and an assembly at the t-case end that contains 2 u-joints.

 

Thanks so much for the response.!! I have a local Napa distribution center down in Renton, WA they supply all the local Napa stores I'm sure they have it in stock.

Yes there were two different driveshaft part numbers on Napa's site for the U-Joint style so I will definitely have to measure mine first and then talk to the salesman. Atleast I can look at and measure it before I walk out to see if it's "right". I may try to look for a driveshaft local shop but since it seems Napa has brand new ones for 233$ then I really just want to walk in and buy it and save the time/hassle. I hear thats the average cost for custom made ones at a specialty driveshaft shop anyways. I can't find any other threads on here about driveshafts and nobody has shared any reliable sources as to where to order one and if they did they are bout 300$+ anyways.

Anyways, Thanks again, I'll update this thread when it's in. Probably this weekend.

 

Rdean, my 90 Bronco II had the CV driveshaft.I replaced it with a single u joint style from Car Quest. Mine has a 4 inch lift and it has been in for about three years with no problems.

 

> i would jack it up and support it on jackstands and have a helper underneath
> while running to try and find the noise

Not a safe work technique by any means, I would not do it.

 

I have 88 B2 and the shaft is about 1 inch shorter. I has a diffrent trans, it was used in place of the other for a few months of perduction. I have cv joints setup and the parts stores do not sell that size, and you cant get just a cv joints. I have got bigger size before and cut it down, i sleved it and weld it and it works well, But it is just a hunting buggy. Another way is to get a old good one and change the cv joints, most of the time the shaft is ok.