clicking or popping from rear????

I'm starting to hear this clicking or popping noise, I believe it's coming from the rear end, but not 100% sure. I don't think it's the engine, I stopped revved up the motor and can't reproduce the sound, but once I start driving I can hear it, hard to tell exactly where from though. Theres a little seepage on the rear differential cover, but there was when I bought it, and it has since been replaced with a new gasket, oil, and torqued to spec. Anyone have any idea of what this might be??? Kinda scared to drive it currently, and I hear these cars have weak rear ends, what actually happens when these rear ends decide to go???? Thanks for any help!!

Could be the carrier starting to go. Jack the rear of the car up, put the tranny in neutral, and spin the tires by hand. See if you can narrow down where the noise is coming from. It may be something simple like the brakes or such.

is it like a "click click click"? how many miles on it? manual trans? i had an issue a while back where it did this when backing up, ...later on it turned into a constant "growl" that could be heard at low-mid road speeds.. at that time the mechanic said, time to redo it and i got the diff rebuilt.

Does it happen more at low speeds coasting around turns?

As odd as it sounds...

If it's a clicking check the tire tread for either a rock wedged in there, or maybe you picked up a bolt. Either of these will cause a clicking noise.

Popping is a bit different. What are you going when it happens? ie accelerating, decelerating, going over bumps, shifting gears...

This might not be the problem but i had a similar problem. Thought it was the rear end but turns out i broke my transmission mount and it bent my exhaust and the exhaust rattled at certain times through each gear. Its a long shot but its a possibility

It turns out that I had broken 4 teeth on the big gear in the rear, 2 on each sided right across from each other. Not exactly sure how that happened since I haven't even been rough on the car yet this year. It's a manual with 38,000 miles.