Clicking noise from rear wheel

[Guest]

Hey all, I have a 1982 GS850G with 20k miles on it and I've started to get a clicking noise from the rear wheel. If the bike is up on the center stand and I spin the wheel I can't get it to make the noise and it's not loud enough to hear when the bike is running. When I push it in neutral or kill it while rolling its very noticeable. When it makes the click noise I can feel it if I put my hand on the rear gear and it will vibrate up the shocks. I've greased the splines because that was my first thought and took the wheel off for a visual inspection but nothing stood out. I'm hoping someone can point in the right direction, I've searched and searched but nothing comes up that matches my situation. thanks

[bwringer]

Is the click once per revolution or more or less often?

Possibilities I can think of offhand include:

1) One or more of the spline retaining bolts have worked loose or are incorrect and are contacting the final drive. I've seen this one before when a spline was installed without using Loctite on the bolts.

2) Bad wheel bearings can bind and they can also allow the wheel to move sideways a bit leading to #1.

3) Missing or deformed axle spacer -- the one in between the bearings and/or the one between the final drive and the left wheel bearing.

4) Problem with the final drive gears; chipped tooth or similar. Would be pretty darn rare -- I don't know that I've ever even heard of one failing.

5) Issue with the rear brake rotor. Should be easy to eliminate by simply removing the caliper temporarily.

6) Issue with the u-joint. Very rare -- I don't think I've ever heard of a GS driveshaft failing.

7) Issue with the secondary drive. Peel the boot over the u-joint back and see if anything wiggles. These are known to break at the flange sometimes, and sometimes the bearing fails.

[MyOtherSS]

Thanks for the response, those are all things I overlooked. Going to tear into it next weekend will report back with what I find.