Axle click on AMC 20

The brake adjuster can make a noise like you describe, especially if the star wheel has gotten sticky/stuck.

I would look there first.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's - Gone to the rust pile... Canadian Off Road Trips Photos: Non members can still view! Jan/06 (More Off Road album links at bottom of the view page)

Wrong again as usual. With a AMC 20 the first place you want to ALWAYS look is make sure that the axle hub "gland" nut is tight because it is what keeps hub tightly on splines. If it turns out loose, you should torque it and if noise persists THEN pull hub and inspect splines and after that brake hardware. If it is snog, pull hub and inspect splines and then brake hardware. While the AMC 20 is basically a stout axle it suffers from a weak hub when used in a 4x4 with a lift and big tires. Generally they tend to hold up for a while IF nut is kept tight and tires are not too big. As someone else mentioned there is a after market one piece axle replace kit for it that when installed makes it a fairly bullet proof rear axle up to 35's or so.

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Thanks Mike, I'll check that out. Pete

Thanks for the help! I'll check all that stuff and maybe I can put off the one piece for a while. I'm running in sleeper mode at stock height with only 31" BFG MT KM right now, but I figured with the power that's in front of the axle, the two piece design might be failing. Pete

Yep. Here it is. Thanks!

I like your driveline setup. What version of the NV4500 did you use and which Tcase did you mate it with? Did you "cam" your 360? (I assume AMC 360) You are definatly pressing the limits of your AMC 20 2 piece rear axle with your engine/tranny setup. THere was a time when the AMC 401 was a real hot ticket in a Jeep but those engines are hard to come by theses days. 360 is a good engine as I have a 28 year old on in a old J20 truck that still runs well. I plan to restore truck one day (I have owned it for 22 years) It is a in storage in the barn right now and has not been on the road for a few years now since exhaust system rusted out. One thing that was nice about my old J20 is that it came from factory with altitude compensanting carb which you do not see many of OEM. I can tell you it worked great because when I had it out in rockies in mid 90's I had no idle or mixture problems from sea level to over 10,000 feet.

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Thanks. Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was out of town on bidness. I'll check into that. Pete

Sorry it took so long to reply. I was out of town workin'. The 4500 is the newer Dodge (not sure of any proper designation) with the 5.61 first gear. The older ones had I think a 6.34 or something close. I couldn't get that anymore, so I ordered up mine from JB Conversions. I tried to find a 401 at the time (1996ish) but the only one available was a short block in Idaho. That's like a 1000 miles away so I called the boneyards around here and found a long block AMC 360 from an '82 Waggy that was literally two miles from my house. They charged me $125 for it and they even left the AC compressor on it. I got the hell out of there as fast as I could before the figured it out. I then used that compressor to build my own on-board air system. I sent the block off to Gopher for a new rebuilt. I have a Comp cam for it sitting on my bench in the garage, but haven't had time to put her in yet. Pete

Oh, yeah, and I'm running the stock Dana 300 Tcase.