1SLwLS1
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2013
- Posts
- 199
- Reaction score
- 244
- Ram Year
- 2013
- Engine
- Hemi 6.4
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.
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
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