Had a regear done a few months ago and ever since I’ve had metallic clicking sounds coming from both sides of my Jeep in the front.
First thought was brakes, so I checked everything and it was all torqued to spec. Which made me think U joints. But would they really go bad at the same time like that?
It happens when I’m rolling into my garage at idle, and seems to coincide with when I press the brakes, which is why I thought brakes. The one day when I was pulling in when I hit the brake I heard that clicking sound but almost like it was winding up as it was clicking and I was coming to the stop. It’s weird. I’ve narrowed it down to these two things, and while everything seems to point to the brakes they’re only 2 years old, and everything checks out ok. The thing that makes me think U joints is that sometimes when I hit a bump I’ll hear a chirp. It’s not the tires, it’s not the brakes, so what’s chirping? Also seems like sometimes when I hit bumps my ABS wants to engage when it didn’t do that before. For those thinking it’s the driveshaft, it’s not the front driveshaft, I’ve got an Adams that’s only about 2 years old.
I know most people are gonna say go back to the shop… A they’re two hours away, B they messed up a bunch of other stuff while they had it and I’ll never go back again. Is there a sure fire way to test those U joints?

 

I have an extremely hard time thinking either the u-joints or unit bearings (thinking abs issue and clicking bearings) would be bad on that 2016 (according to your profile). Is there any way to capture the sound on video? Most of us don't have GoPros, but I find this is a useful thing to keep old cell phones around for. I can tape one in place under the jeep and record a video.....and if it falls off and breaks it's no big deal. This also helps pinpoint exactly the area the sound is emitting from.

 

yep it’s a 2016. I got it 3 years ago now, it was a lease with 30,000 miles. I know the previous owner had done stuff to it and took everything back off when he sold it, so it was stock when I got it but I’m pretty sure he beat on it. As soon as I got it I lifted it and put 35s on it, beat on it some myself, but everything has been fine until I took it in for that regear and ever since I’ve been trying to fix everything they messed up. So you’re leaning more towards the brakes? I wanted to get a video yesterday but forgot. I’ll try today

 

What I keep focussing on when I re-read your post is the ABS issue. When you hit a bump and your ABS gets triggered for a second it makes my mind go to the tone ring rotating by that ABS sensor.....and what is keeping that tone ring in-line are the bearings in that hub. So with you getting a little chirping AND you getting an occasional ABS issue, it kinda makes me think unit bearing, BUT I just find it hard to believe that failing so soon on your jeep. Those just seem to last longer. Obviously this is just me thinking through the issue without hearing anything and taking a stab in the dark.

I have a hub conversion kit myself and have had bearing issues which lead to ABS issues as bad bearings would get the tone ring out of alignment as they passed by the sensor. That is kinda where my thought process originates from.

 

it won’t let me upload the video, says it’s too large. To me it sounds like when a driveshaft CV joint is going bad. But I have a double cardan.

 

The best way to get videos here is to upload to youtube and then simply paste a link here which embeds the video.

 

my exhaust and intake put out a lot of background noise but you can hear the clicking loud and clear

 

made one with the wheels off. So hard to tell if it’s the brakes or the bearing. Definitely not the u joint.

 

Sorry, I can watch videos at work but not listen to them so I just now watched those again. It's really hard to hear much of anything on the 2nd one .... it kinda of sounds like a brake pad dragging in the video, but I don't think that is what it sounds like in person probably. If that was my jeep I think I'd remove the brake caliper and spin that again. If it's still making the sound the only thing left is the unit bearing. If it stops making the sound it has to be the brakes. Is it doing that on both sides? Not sure what that shop could have done to have this noise start coincidentally after your regear work.

 

I ended up picking up new wheel hub assemblies and new calipers and pads. It was definitely one or the other, or possibly a combination of both. But hopefully between the two that’ll take care of it. The clicking did seem to be coming from the brake caliper, but I do have a number of the symptoms of a bad axle hub assembly too