Clicking sound from the rear tire?

[98EXPY 5-0]

When moving slowly, or coming to a stop at a light, I sometimes hear a clicking sound. Sort of like a baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle, except not that often. Last night I pulled into an empty lot and drove with the door open and it sounds like it's coming from the left rear wheel area. When I go a little faster, I can't hear it anymore, and I definately can't hear it at driving speeds. Just when I am going quite slow.

I guess I need to jack the whole rear up so I can spin both tires and see if I can find it. Any thoughts on what to be looking at? It's possible that it won't make any sound without weight on it.

 

[Stoned06]

Something simple to check is the center cap of the rim. Sometimes those have a tendency to creak a little. Could be bearing, something stuck on the brakes/pad also. If not that, you will have to get into the hub or axle and see what's up.

 

[Expeditionary]

u joints click sometimes and you only hear them on your side of the truck (left side if your driving)

 

[FordandPolaris]

It could also be a small exhaust leak. The studs holding the cats tight to the manifolds tend to go bad on these, and slowly open a leak. Can sound like ticking when it first starts happening.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I missed the part where you said it sounded like it was coming from the rear. I would say the bearing on that side could be going bad then.

 

[98EXPY 5-0]

u joints click sometimes and you only hear them on your side of the truck (left side if your driving)

Are you saying that clicking is normal? I hope not.

 

[GAINMOB]

^ no he's saying that this may be a cause of the noise and to check it out...not unheard of...but not normal

 

[catmandu]

I just went through this with mine. Clicks are irregular, not 180 degrees out of phase, more like two clicks then a pause? Next time you hear them at slow speed, slowly feed in your parking brake and see if they go away. If so, good chance the braking material has broken loose from the parking brake shoe inside the rotor. Shoes cost me $23 at NAPA, and were in stock, took about an hour (only because I am a child of the disc brake age, and can count on one hand the number of drum/shoe sets I've had to change, so it was a struggle to go 'old school' ).

 

[Expeditionary]

^ no he's saying that this may be a cause of the noise and to check it out...not unheard of...but not normal

my toyota's u joints clicked, then squeaked, then it went away but when you get over 40mph it would shake your teeth out, 89 toyota P/U 4x4, little lift on big 31s lol.
I fixed the ujoints the day I sold the thing, a month later I was driving the green machine that is "Big Eddie" today lol

 

[98EXPY 5-0]

Ok, so I pulled the left rear wheel and found that the e-brake cable on the had snapped. But I figured that wouldn't cause the noise because the return spring was still there. So Ipulled the rotor and the pad material had come loose and was just bouncing around. I removed the loose peices. I've done drum brakes, but not behind the axle like that. I think I'll let my mechanic do it when I get my inspection. The right side still looks good.