Got a question that none of the local repair shops can answer about my Suzuki. Bone stock 1988 Samurai. Either 175 or 275K miles on it. Hasn’t had an easy life. Anyways, it has done great until about 3 months ago when I started hearing a random pop from my rear end.  It has gotten progressively worse. Now it consistently pops when I’m just idling around the property and I feel like it does it at highway speeds too but with the wind noise I can’t tell for sure. Pulled the drums apart, I see nothing wrong in there. Haven’t dug deeper yet. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

It’s really difficult to answer this question in a forum. A “random pop” sound simply isn’t enough to go on. Inconsistent noises don’t usually mean anything rotational, so why did you suspect a brake drum?

To help narrow things down, do you hear the pop when...

1) the engine is running but you’re not moving?

2) the engine is off and you’re rolling down a hill?