They ordered the new chrome-molly axle shafts and should be in next week; so I will know more when they are installed.
And yes I have a 44 in the rear (don't know what I was thinking)
There was a vibration on the highway, could feel it thru the shifter, but did not feel the usual bent rotor wobble under braking - I'm a bit surprised that no else has had this, they said it was more common than I am finding on here.
I will keep you all informed, and thanks for your input, it does help to know there are folks out there that care about other Jeep'sters.

 

Not that common on a rear with 35" tires. I beat the crap out of my 4 dr x on 37" creepy crawlers and have bent the front D30 tubes but have never bent a rear. youre in apex so I guess you went to the Raliegh store. I only know Greg at that store and personally believe he is biased against JK's. Are they saying the axle tubes are bent or the shafts? honestly I wouldn't trust them. You have a great shop in Raliegh called East Coast gear. I would give em a call. They could be right but I have seen them wrong on basic knowledge about the JK.

 

I had a bent rear flange on the driver side. I could not feel it while driving and the only indication was a noisy brake.

 

bent front axel housing here.... it was replaced under factory warranty with 3k miles on the jeep. I have seen rear axels bent/broken mostly on jeeps running 37-40s but nothing minor... all major... I think if your axel was bent you would have bigger indicators than a little vibration in the shifter.... get a second opinion!!!!

 

Parts should be in this weekend, so I will know exactly first of next week.

Still surprised that no one else has had this problem.

 

You say you wheel it pretty hard.... I think that's an indication of the problem and not a widespread issue like you're fishing for honestly...

 

I Had the same wobble and the brakes squeaked too. Pulled the shaft out and the splines looked like this

 

One of my rear axle flanges was bent. I had a squeaking rear brake that was driving me nuts. Eek Eek EeK Eek. I replaced pads and it went away for awhile then returned. Put the rear up on jack stands and put it drive, sure enough, one of the rear calipers was gyrating pretty good and the others wasn't. I removed the rear tires and measured the flange squareness with a dial indicator (with the plunger parallel with the axle housing) and it was moving in and out .025/revolution. The other moved less than .003. Doesn't sound like much but at the outside perimeter of the tire, it was quite a bit. I changed to alloy rear axles and finally got rid of the Eeking.

 

So I take it you had to replace the shafts also.
How many miles, tire size, etc. and do you wheel hard?

 

That sounds EXACTLY what I could see - finally glad to see someone else had the problem, thought it was me alone for a time. As someone once said "I'm in the same boat as you, but I wish we both were on shore".