If You’ve Tried Everything Diagnosing Your Suspension’s Squeak and Still Can’t Figure It Out, Try This

[1SLwLS1]

I have been running down everything on my suspension for well over a year. I was hearing what sounded like a little chirp, convinced it was a metal-on-metal squeak, whenever I would go over bumps in the road. It was driving me nuts.

I had checked sway bars, shocks, shock bushings, spring isolators, control arm bushings, tie-rods, ball-joints, panhard bar, hubs, helper bags, etc., literally anything that moved and was connected to the suspension, I had removed/cleaned/lubricated. I would disconnect things and drive around, multiple times, in multiple different environments, always made noise. Made my truck feel like a POS and was quite embarrassing driving around. My next theory was the helper bags squeaking and had planned to try and remove them in a few months. I had been dry lubricating them to no end.

Anyhow, last night I had lifted the rear bed keeping the axle on the ground so it would be level - I was changing break-in oil on rear diff - and it was quite tight with my creeper hanging over the edge of the driveway into dirt and at one point I bumped the spare tire and my life was forever changed. There. Was. That. MFin’. Noise. The friggin’ spare tire was a smidge loose and rubbing! That was my noise. I was so excited to drop that spare tire and test it out. The squeak was gone!

On another note, pumping 85w-140 with the little plastic hand pump in low to mid 50F weather is a royal pain. It was thicker than honey and molasses. I ended dumping what I could get from bottles, combining the remains until I was left with what little was left and pumped in about 0.4 qt until it slowly flowed out fill. Also took forever to drain, I let it drip for probably 45 minutes and 30 minutes of that was a continuous stream.

I don’t really have any motivational advice, like keep on running diagnostics, you’ll get it, I just happened to very fortunately stumble onto it. So if you’ve got a weird squeak, check your spare!!

Noise in video is around 0:16, 0:23, & 0:50 going over two speed bumps and the lip into my old driveway. Video was from summer of 2023.

Squeak when driving 2013 Ram 1500 4x2 over bumps

youtube.com

 

[kdoublep]

Nice find!

 

[chopperman1]

Nice find! Next diff service, try using the bags, you'll never go back to the pump style!

 

[Dean2]

Good find. As to gear oil, full synthetic pumps a bit easier than regular gear oil when it gets colder but 85W still gets pretty thick.

 

[1SLwLS1]

Nice find! Next diff service, try using the bags, you'll never go back to the pump style!

I used those on my stock diff, they were awesome (Valvoline syn 75w-140) but they don’t make them for the 85w-140 unfortunately, or at least none I could find.

Good find. As to gear oil, full synthetic pumps a bit easier than regular gear oil when it gets colder but 85W still gets pretty thick.

I’m running a TrueTrac which they don’t recommend synthetic. It’s probably outdated guidance as diff design is very old but my opinion from the research I’ve done is it may reduce the bias ratio which defeats the purpose. Probably doesn’t make a noticeable difference but the shop that installed it recommended conventional 85w-140 so while under their warranty, I am going to follow their instructions.