PLEASE HELP With Roof Light Bar Whistle

Too much of a gap between the windshield and bar. I have never had any whistle even in pretty strong winds in Baja. 50" radius bar and TRAC Performance bolt in brackets.

 

Have the same problem with mine. Just did a test run with tape over the screws in the front and that stopped the whistle completely. Now I just need to figure out a more permanent solution other than tape.

 

I have the MCM Fab mounts also and a dual row 50” curved rough country light bar. It came with 5 of those rubber spacer finger things. It was previously on my 98 Grand Cherokee and had no noise. Sold the Jeep and now on my 2012 Tacoma and I have horrible whistle starting around 5 mph and just gets louder the faster I go until I hit about 60-65 mph then it turns into wind vibration turbulence.

I tried taping over all the fins, tried taping the holes on the mounts, tried adjusting the angle of the light. Nothing works. Gonna try taping the screw holes and the bottom slit before the cooling fins, those are the only other two solutions I’ve read about that I haven’t tried. Considering buying a wind diffuser on Amazon, see link below. Anyone tried this? If I can’t solve it I’m taking it off.
Light Bar Noise Reducer 50" Wind Diffuser

$117 ZROADZ Noise Cancelling Wind Diffuser, Black, Aluminum for 50" Curved Double Row LED Light Bar (Z330050C)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AT5IMDC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ojPhEb789TYCG

 

Damn $90???

 

Buddy of mine in college just wrapped some rope around his and it stopped the whistle. Looked janky but it got the job done.

 

Good news...kind of. I figured out the whistle on my light. It is coming from the screws on the face of the light bar. Covered them with some blue painters tape and the whistle went away. However, the vibration is still pretty bad starting at about 65 mph, so I still need a solution for that. I also need to figure out how to cover up the screws without having tape all over my light bar.

 

Silicone? And if u need access to the screws the silicone should peel off pretty easily

or black tape of some sort

 

Well, I gave up! I tried mocking up a cardboard wind diffuser similar to that $90 Zroadz one that they sell, but it didn't help the vibration issue. Looked sweet with the bar on, but the turbulence/roof vibration at highway speeds was too annoying. Might do some more research to see if anyone has a combination of mounts & light bars that tend to work without creating issue. This seems to be a problem across all makes and models of light bars, surprised manufacturers haven't designed something that deals with this problem.

 

I haven't read to see if you've tried this before but you might want to replace the bushings with thicker bushings if the bar is buffeting the in the wind. Something like https://www.lowes.com/search?searchTerm=rubber+bushing might work. If you can shake your bar with your hand or if it's not sitting tight in the mounts might be the cause of your roof vibration. I couldn't say for sure since I don't have a full radius bar like yours.

-J

 

Its tight. There is no give, no flex when I grab the mounts. I can shake the whole truck by grabbing the mount.

 

I have these mounts from eBay:

and a 42” curved light bar from Amazon. I don’t have any whistling or vibration. I do have wind noise similar to having a lumber rack.

i put door edge trim on the bottom two heat diffusers it didn’t help with wind noise.

 

Yeah, I think the wind noise issue is cause of the flat front. Not much can be done about that unless you get one of those round diffusers. Saw a review on youtube and the guys said it was as silent as before.
https://aeroxindustries.com/collections/light-bar-cover

 

Also I didn’t see any of those for curved bars, only straight right?

 

Correct. I only see them for straight bars. There is another company I also found called Mictunning (https://mictuning.com/) that has the curved diffuser built in, but they only have straight bars. Seems like I need to start a new lighting company and make the first silent vibration and whistle free light bar.

 

I messaged Aerolux (https://aeroxindustries.com/collections/light-bar-cover) they say they are hoping to have a one for a curved light bar next year.

 

So is it the actual sheet metal of the roof that is making the noise? You might be able to mask the noise with a roof rack to break up the ... laminar (?) air flow over the roof.

-J

 

Not sure what is causing it exactly, but I don't really want a roof rack nor do I have $500+ to drop on one.

 

my light bar is mounted to the oem rack.

(No whistle/vibs, just wind noise)

 

That’d be nice.

 

It would be interesting to see what the bar looks like on a truck in a wind tunnel with a smoke funnel. Just to see how the wind reacts across the different parts of the bar. I wonder if one of those hood mounted bug/rock deflectors would lift the wind up high enough to pass over the light bar at speed?

-J