Just for anyone searching the Forum,

I've had a rattle in the rear of my TJ Wagon that came and went but lately was always there at idle, pulled all the tools out of the spare wheel well, wrapped them in cloth - Bzzt

Removed and refitted the Jack - Nup

Removed the spare wheel and cleaned up the bits and bobs of metal several large washers Ah Ha! - Nope

Pulled the interior cover off the tailgate and tightened everything within a mm of it's life - refitted - and Bugger... rattle rattle

Today - FINALLY found it...

The mount that holds the rear of the muffler on was coming loose there are two nuts 1 was nearly completely off and the other loose enough to allow the plate they hold to rattle against the body - was a bugger to get a spanner on them but now... Bliss....

Some more sources of wagon rattles . In my case a TF.

1. Rear muffler hanger. The same hanger mentioned above but in my case it was the knob at the top of the hook. It produced a pretty solid clunk when I hit a significant bump. Took me ages to find this. The cause was a new muffler I fitted a year ago. The new muffler pipe must be bent a cm or two to the right which caused the knob (which hangs on a rubber) to hit the underbody of the car. The fix was to remove the bracket and grind some metal off the knob. I also put 5 washers under each of the two nuts that secure the bracket to the muffler. This helped to slightly reposition the hanger.

2. Rear door catch rod. You have to remove the rear door trim to get at this. When the door is shut this rod is in a vertical position and can rattle. The fix was simply to stretch a light spring between the rod and a convenient hole on the door skin.

3. Rear key assembly. At the back of the lock theres a flat coil spring that is supposed to apply pressure to the rod lever, presumably to prevent rattles. On my car this spring had somehow positioned itself so it was applying no pressure. The fix was simply to manipulate the spring back into a useful position.

4. Rear door trim panel. (Thats the big one with the speaker grilles). I glued some sponge to a couple of suspect spots and rearranged things to make up for some of the 'studs' that were broken. You really have to be diligent refitting this panel or youll get more rattles than you start with. Its a bitch to refit if you are working alone and very difficult if you try to do it with the tailgate fully open. My trick was to position the car under the garage roller door, then lowered the roller door to the ideal height to hold the tailgate in position as I pushed against it from below. Of course I had plenty of rags on top of the tailgate to prevent scratches.

4. Rear timber floor panels. I removed and 'repadded' the underside of the side boards and also put duct tape on some areas of the spare wheel cover where it was rubbing against metal.

5. Plastic rear side panels. Removed them and glued thin sponge rubber to any suspect areas. I had to remove the entire rear seat to get these panels off.

6. Petrol filler flap. I bent the spring so it applied a little more pressure to the door flap.

Very happy with the results of this latest effort to reduce rattles and squeaks.

Edit. (This is something I fixed on an earlier occasion). Behind the drivers side rear panel mentioned in point 5 above theres a relay or control box mounted to the inner body of the car. I dont know what it does, but anyway its only mounted using a plastic stud. In my case the stud had broken and the relay was just hanging loose in the cavity and would knock against the body occasionally. I remounted it using a bolt. I originally found this problem by banging on the outer rear guard of the car.