Need help with new squeak need help diagnosing please!

Ok my 97 auto 4x4 has developed a new squeak when rolling. I have dealt with the "angry sparrow" with a worn out CV in the front driveshaft and while this does sound like a bird is does not sound like a CV. I am fairly positive it is coming from the front end somewhere but not quite sure where. The rear u-joints are fairly new and the front CV is about a year old. The front driveshaft axle end u-joint has been replaced in the past so there is a possibility it could be old enough to wear out again but I would be surprised if it was since it isn't THAT old and I have dealt with worn u-joints before and they never make any noises in my experience but rather gave me bad vibrations. I have never dealt with a worn axle u-joint though so I am unaware of they symptoms but I have heard they just make a clunking sound. I have had the front unit bearings go but they made a grinding noise and a slight vibration when turning.

So as you can see I am at a loss at what in the front rotating assembly could be going bad here or atleast need attention.

Any ideas?

My 98 does this... Passenger side front brake. My solutiuon will to replace with WJ parts as I have already replaced the caliper pins and coated them with a high temp lube. Did this last June and the problem went away until last Friday...

I feel like it isn't the brakes because the squeak is still there even when the brakes are applied.

Jack up each side separately with the wheel still on rotate it(the wheel) and see if you can localize the squeak area..or at least the side and go from there. Your u-joints----did you leave just the factory grease in them? Have you greased them lately, if they are greasable on the ones you got that is.

All the u-joints are non-serviceable so I cannot grease them and they came with plenty of grease in them oh and they are Spicer joints too not the Japanese crap. The axle u-joint on the driver's side however was replaced a few years back by a shop and they used the Japanese crap so I am thinking that might be the problem since they used the same brand joint in the rear driveshaft as well and they didn't even last 2 years. The squeak is getting worse and I have noticed that it gets louder when turning. As soon as I get some spare time I am going to crawl underneath the Jeep and take a look around.

Ok so I still haven't had a chance to jack the Jeep up and start checking things however the sound has gotten much louder and noticeable. It is the loudest when the wheels are turned and it drastically quiets down once the wheels have turned back straight. I am heavily leaning towards a bad axle u-joint. It sounds like the drivers side which makes the most sense to me because a few years back, probably about 6 now, I had the Jeep in the shop and they replaced the drivers side axle u-joint with a no name Japanese joint.

I had the Jeep in there for a bad drivers side unit bearing since I didn't have time to do it myself and this was before I was as experienced working on it as I am now. And of course they convinced me that I also needed to replace the rear driveshaft u-joints, the axle u-joint, and my water pump. I learned after that not to trust shops too much and only used quality replacement parts since the rear driveshaft joints (also the same japanese crap) didn't last hardly 2 years and when I replaced them the body of the joint in the caps were severely ground away and causing horrible vibrations. Then a year later the water pump went bad. The bearing for the impeller shaft had completely failed causing the shaft to wobble around. The impeller was digging into the body of the pump and making a terrible grinding sound.

The point of my short story here is everything that shop put on my Jeep has not only worn out prematurely but completely failed and with little warning before it was a serious problem needing immediate attention. They also replaced my rear main seal, oil pan gasket, and oil filter housing O-ring, of which I have since had to replace the the RMS and OPG. The only parts that they put on the Jeep that has seemed to last at all have been the unit bearing on both sides of the front axle.

I replaced all of the failed parts with OEM quality parts from autozone and used Spicer joints in the rear driveshaft.

When I get a chance to crawl under the Jeep and check things out, I will use a Spicer joint if it turns out to be that crappy Japanese joint has gone bad.

I would like to get some feedback from ya'll on if there isn't really much slop in the joint would be ok to continue to drive on it for another week and a half or so?

I will be traveling home to Atlanta for the Easter weekend coming up and I know a good shop up there close to home that I can get Spicer parts from. I also want to have a shop there that I trust real well check out my ball-joints. My tires (33" KM2s) feel like they might have some cupping going on which I have heard bad ball-joints can cause. They were also very quiet at first, for a mud-terrain tire atleast, but since I first rotated them they give me some noticeable road noise. So if the ball-joints appear to be worn out then I'd like to replace them at the same time I am replacing the axle u-joint.

I just realized this has been a pretty long post so thanks to those that read the whole thing. I took my ADD medication to study and it makes me hyper-focus most of the time resulting is long posts that jump around from different thoughts like this one haha.

Ben824 said:

however the sound has gotten much louder and noticeable. It is the loudest when the wheels are turned and it drastically quiets down once the wheels have turned back straight.

I would like to get some feedback from ya'll on if there isn't really much slop in the joint would be ok to continue to drive on it for another week and a half or so?

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Just from these two parts in your post I would say no. Do not drive another mile, OK 2 to 3......

If it is getting worse it seems like it is past the point it should be and is unsafe for road driving. It can seize and or catch on itself causing you more grief then its worth. You can do a u-joint swap in about 45 minutes start to finish any where you have the tools to take it off. A little longer if you have never done one. Changing the joint is simpler then removing the axle stub from the diff in my thought.

Ben824 said:

I just realized this has been a pretty long post so thanks to those that read the whole thing. I took my ADD medication to study and it makes me hyper-focus most of the time resulting is long posts that jump around from different thoughts like this one haha.

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LOL you don't say....hahaha and yes I took the time to read it all.......

Mine did the same thing, pull your front driveshaft out and see if it goes away, I bet all the grease is washed out or dried up in the ball inside the double cardan joint. it's no more difficult to rebuild than replacing a ujoint, the only tricky part is getting the center spring back in right on the ball. you mentioned it didn't sound like last time but every time mine starts to squeak again it sounds different :dunno: maybe that's just me though.

magimerlin said:

Just from these two parts in your post I would say no. Do not drive another mile, OK 2 to 3......

If it is getting worse it seems like it is past the point it should be and is unsafe for road driving. It can seize and or catch on itself causing you more grief then its worth. You can do a u-joint swap in about 45 minutes start to finish any where you have the tools to take it off. A little longer if you have never done one. Changing the joint is simpler then removing the axle stub from the diff in my thought.





LOL you don't say....hahaha and yes I took the time to read it all.......

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Well thanks for taking the time to read it all! And the advice as well! Unfortunately that is what I was afraid of. I have changed out an axle u-joint on a 99 4x4 Ram before and the dana 44 front axle on those really are just an oversized Jeep Dana 30 so I know I can do it and it won't be all that difficult however I was hoping I could wait until I could have the ball-joints looked at so I could do them at the same time. Oh well gotta do what I gotta do I guess. Only problem is I go to school in a small town in south Ga and I can't seem to find anyone down here who can get me spicer joints. I would hate to have to put in something else after having gone through what I have experienced with off brands.

GrimmJeeper said:

Mine did the same thing, pull your front driveshaft out and see if it goes away, I bet all the grease is washed out or dried up in the ball inside the double cardan joint. it's no more difficult to rebuild than replacing a ujoint, the only tricky part is getting the center spring back in right on the ball. you mentioned it didn't sound like last time but every time mine starts to squeak again it sounds different :dunno: maybe that's just me though.

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I was really beginning to think that might be the problem again but now I am really leading towards the axle u-joint and here is why.

I actually have had the double cardan go bad on me twice now. It started the same way both times and sounded exactly the same. My current problem does not sound much like the driveshaft did and like I mentioned earlier this problem really only shows itself when the wheels are turned and nearly disappears when going straight. This is unlike my past experience with the double cardan going out because that mad the "angry sparrow" squeaking noise once the Jeep started rolling and wouldn't stop until the Jeep came to a stop regardless of whether the wheels were turned left to right the noise was always consistent.

Only reason I dealt with the double cardan problem twice is I did the work the first time and apparently missed a step. I used two spicer non-serviceable joints but a different brand ball-centering kit. Everything went together fine and it was good for a little over a year until the "angry sparrow" began to show itself again. I believe what I did wrong was although I was using non-serviceable (non-geaseable) parts, I still should have put some grease in the caps of the joints and in the centering kit. Both joints and the centering kit came with grease already in them which I assumed was enough. So I had to learn a lesson the hard way but now I know not to make that mistake again.

The second time I took the driveshaft off and took it to a shop here in town that I was referred to that specializes in driveline work. The guy replaced the joints and the centering kit but said his parts supplier in Savannah couldn't get Spicer joints which I specifically asked for but he assured me the brand he used was good. He also assured me that if his supplier couldn't get Spicer stuff that nobody else really could either without making a special order. I needed the driveshaft back asap so I took what he said with a grain of salt and let him go ahead and fix it with what he had. That was about a year ago now and so far so good.

Ok just to update I finally came down to decide that the axle-u-joint was the problem because the squeak went away (which can sometimes be a really bad thing) but I could still hear the slight clunk. I also start to feel a shimmy in the wheel while turning like something was catching and releasing. Well I got the axle shaft out and the u-joint wouldnt even rotate on two of the caps by hand. When I finally got it off two of the caps had nothing but rust in it no sign of grease and the other cap had black dust in it and the needle bearings wouldn't even move when I tried to move them around with my finger. Now this joint was the off brand japanese junk and said Japan right on it. It didn't even last hardly 5 years and maybe 60,000-70,000 miles while the passenger side joint was the ORIGINAL stock Spicer joint that was 14 years old and had 200,000+ miles on it and 125,000 of those miles were on 31" and 33" tires and off-road use. When I took it off it still had grease in it and really didn't NEED replacing at all but because of the age and miles I did it anyway. That there showed me the quality of the Spicer products and that will be all that I use from now on when replacing components on the Jeep.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Ben824 said:

Ok so I still haven't had a chance to jack the Jeep up and start checking things however the sound has gotten much louder and noticeable. It is the loudest when the wheels are turned and it drastically quiets down once the wheels have turned back straight.

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This may not be your problem .... but it was mine.

I had an intermittent squeak, sometimes it could be induced by turning the wheels left or right, and at times it could be induced when I braked.

Sometime it did not occur at all.

For me it was the right REAR brake. Turns out the Previous Owner was cheap and short cutted his last brake job.

In any case, new shoes, new drums, new hardware = NO SQUEAK.


I found the issue by lifting the XJ and spinning each wheel. Once I was on the squeaky wheel I started pulling everything off. Squeak was there until the drum was removed.

I was praying while on my knees that a bearing was not somehow the culprit.

KD3NE_ said:

This may not be your problem .... but it was mine.

I had an intermittent squeak, sometimes it could be induced by turning the wheels left or right, and at times it could be induced when I braked.

Sometime it did not occur at all.

For me it was the right REAR brake. Turns out the Previous Owner was cheap and short cutted his last brake job.

In any case, new shoes, new drums, new hardware = NO SQUEAK.


I found the issue by lifting the XJ and spinning each wheel. Once I was on the squeaky wheel I started pulling everything off. Squeak was there until the drum was removed.

I was praying while on my knees that a bearing was not somehow the culprit.

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I guess you missed my last post where the u-joint did infact turn out to be the problem and I replaced it. But that is interesting how your rear brakes would make that kind of a noise intermittently and sometimes when turning.