Odd noises....

Yep, odd noises.....

In drive at idle I get a very loud thumping from the underbody of my 87 XJ. I butted it up against the garage wall and left it in gear while I looked under it. It had a minor underbody noise at idle when I bought, but maybe it got louder??

I can see anything moving, and can't hear it from outside, or underneath, only in the cab....

In park or reverse, there is no noise.....

I did go wheeling in the dunes on a friends property the other day (he lives on what used to be an RV park, then coverted it to an ATV playground for his kids (the trails are wide enough for a F/S chevy pickup, but not very long, lots of jump though...), so I checked for sticks and other crapola, none to be found....

No I didn't jump it!! Just did some slow crawling to create some flex......

The trans mount is solid, I even tried to pry on it with the pry bar, I got no movement. I also pried on the engine mounts with the prybar, suprisingly, no motion, despite the rubber being torn.....

The fuel tank is still up and tight to the body, as is everything underneath....

WTF is making noise here???

Check where the exhaust pipe goes over the trans-x-member.the turque of the motor will allow it to hit there sometimes.

Never thought of that....

There is an ugly looking mount for the exhaust pipe that attached to the X-member, I wonder if that might be it....

Oh, well, I might try to eliminate that mount when I get the chance.....

its the boogey man. pull his ass out from under there and kick the s@@t out of him,he wont come back. trust me

I think I drove it out.....

I found some good "legal" dunes out on the beach north of the normal tourist area...(the area is driven by the residents in the area, but it is open to everyone, because it's less traveled, the dunes actually have a chance to form nice little jumps....) I had some totally legal dune driving fun.....

Needless to say, there was air under my XJ......

No I didn't do the twenty foot monster truck leaps, just about 3 or 4 inches of height under the tires....(well, what do you expect with a 25MPH speed limit?) Nice soft landings, nothing harsh....

Now I no longer have the noise....(the tree branch that fell out from the top of the transfer case probably helped......) I guess I missed that one on my inspection. I found it laying in the driveway, covered in goo from the underside of the Jeep.....

I think I sucked it up the last time I drove in the dunes, there were some large-ish sticks that I drove over.....