98XJDriver

Good stuff in these responses. ALL the things the mechanic mentioned you can do yourself. Few have anything to do with a rear rattle. First check the torque on your rear spring u-bolts. See torque values below. The anti-sway bar bushings are readily available from the usual on-line Jeep Cherokee parts suppliers like 4WD. I recently had the same rear rattle issue on my 98 XJ. 108K miles. Started with the rear hatch. Nope. Replaced shocks and anti-sway bar rubber bushings, front and rear (suggest Monroe Sensamatic shocks for a mallcrawler). XJs' like most/all cars and trucks have have rear leaf springs AND rear shocks. Got the anti-sway bushings overnight from NAPA. Replace the steel links that hold the bushings to the axles. Just doing the rebuild of the anti-sway bars, front and rear, and the new shocks made the Jeep drive a LOT better but didn't solve the rattle. Then I replaced the rear springs. That fixed the rattle. But I gotta say, removing the spring bolts on my particular XJ was really hard, even after soaking them every day for a week with PB Blaster. Used a 1/2 inch x 18" breaker bar with a 3 foot pipe extension. AND a serious-as-hell pneumatic wrench. I got them out of the frame nuts but not out of the rubber bushings in the springs because the bolts had rusted and became one with the steel shafts in the rubber bushings. (The Jeep came from Mass. and the salt on the winter roads had done a job on the all the undercarriage hardware.) Worked on 'em for two days and got three out of four off. The last one was not going to come out. Went to Harbor Freight, got a $40 serious-as-a-heart-attack 7" grinder on sale and some diamond carbide cutting discs. In 5 minutes and a shower of sparks that bolt was off. Shoulda done that day one on all of them. The bolts are 14mm x 2.0 thread pitch x 120mm long. Bottom line, the new springs and new poly spring bushings got rid of the rattle and between the new anti-sway bar bushings, new shocks and new rear springs, the XJ rides like a new truck. Lotsa work, but I'm really glad I did it. BTW, I used anti-seize on all the bolts when I reinstalled them so the next time they will be easier to remove. Pay attention to the factory torque specs when reinstalling the bolts. Upper shackle bolts and front spring pivot bolt: 115 ft lbs. Lower shackle (rear shackle) nut: 80 ft lbs. 52 ft lbs for the u-bolt nuts. Just 17 ft lbs for the VERY breakable upper rear shock bolts, 46 ft lbs for the lower nut. The small upper link bolt (rear link): 9 ft lbs. Lower rear link nut: 55 ft lbs. I know this all sounds like it is way hard, but it is really pretty basic mechanics. You can do it. PB Blaster is your friend. Start using it many days ahead of time.

stump98

This will sound stupid, but I'd bet its you front sway bay link. Took me forever to track down on mine, sounded like rr but ended up being rf sb link.

EndlessMtnFab

Sorry ... had to do it.








Joe