Hello again XJ experts. My daughter's 2000 was making a little noise from the driver's side rear when stopping. When she was almost completely stopped, there is a small pop noise like a brake shoe shifting. I pulled the drum and everything looks fine in there, including the brake shoes that look new. During my inspection, I shook the wheel top to bottom, left to right and there is some movement on both sides on the rear. I presume the wheel bearings are bad, but how bad warrants replacement. There isn't any grinding or other noise while moving. I'm not trying to cheap out, but it does have 150k miles and severe hail damage so I don't want to put a lot of money into the vehicle, but I certainly want it safe for my daughter.

I also found that one of the leaf spring retainers (clamp) was broken on the driver's side rear. Maybe that's the source of the noise when the suspension shifts.

 

On my 00 when the wheel bearings in the axle went out you could hear them... as well as the cars next to you. When I went out to mine i had a little play... but not much. My thoughts are that the leaf spring clamp or a bad bushing in the leaf spring shackles could be the culprit for your noise. Hope this helps.

 

you can deff hear and feel it all the time when your driving if it's your wheel bearings... thats how it was with mine so i'm gonna bet it aint your wheel bearings...