So after reading this and going batty listening to the thunk and bump in the rear of my GC, I went to the hardware store, found some m12x1.75 bolts. Checked that the shank width was the same as the widest part of the OEM taper bolt took em home and slapped em in. Guess what, the thump and bump was WORSE! Thinking that couldn't be, I manually bounced the rear end and could hear them doing their thump. Took shocks off, thump went away. So, not being happy with these reuslt, I put a single wrap of duct tape around the shank of the original sand and ran em back in. Thump gone.

I doubt it will last but at least I can pinpoint other noises until I can figure out the best way to deal with this insistent clunking.

 

Anyone tried these?
https://kevinsoffroad.com/products/w...ts-set-of-four

I'm skeptical this would actually work as my shocks already have steel sleeves in them and the very slight difference (<1 mm I'm guessing) between the sleeve ID and bolt OD is what allows the clunking. One of these reviews does say the clunk is improved, but not gone. I could see that perhaps working if your shocks had no steel sleeve or a significantly oversized steel.

My tape trick above has reduced the amount of noise. After a week of driving it is slowly coming back, as I expected it would as it pounds the tape away. I've never had a vehicle that was so sensitive to this issue before, so I'm really shocked how pronounced it is in the WJ (my first one). My last '98 had this same clunk but I sold it before diving into a fix. My previous 95 did not have this.

Frustrating to say the least.

 

I saw that and thought about trying it, but on my 2003 overland, both the top and bottom sleeves need to be 1.25", there is no way a 1.5" sleeve would fit in the top...

 

You dont say?? lol. Im sorry. I had to. Thats unfortunate with all the issues. Is it possible the mount is wobbled out/oval hole. The whole bolt/sleeve combo could be moving in the mount. try drilling the whole slightly larger, and replace with a larger GRADE8 bolt.

 

Someone caught that, ;-)

While digging around found out these mothers need to be torqued to 80 ft lbs. Geeezus! So, torqued em down and will see how that changes things. Only had about 25# on em with the ratchet.

 

I finally solved my chunking issue also. I noticed that the bolt holes were all bigger than the bolts. Must have been because they were not tightened well enough and just wore the holes.
Finally resorted to welding washers that were just the right size to all 4 placed now no more thunk. Still some noise when going over uneven terrain but the clunking is gone.

 

I have never got rid of my clunking. Torqued the shocks to spec, have replaced all control arms, it still clunks front and rear when going over bumps. Wondering if perhaps it was a bad t-case mount allow it to move, I checked that. Seems solid. Wondering if perhaps its the driveshafts pounding something in the t-case. Is there any fore/aft play allowed in the output shafts of the NV242?

 

Have you looked at the upper control arm ball joint? The one on top of the differential.

 

Yup, that was the first one I replaced hoping that the ball joint was hammered and allowing excess motion. No change, so I went through the rest of the arms. Still there.