Rear end howl/whine at 60mph....NO MORE HOWL!! issue solved.....ITS BACK!!!!! :(

today is the day.....diff swap time
any minute now fedex will drop off the 70 pound beast
& my diff swap party begins....this will suck, but hopefully my howl is gone for good & I can get back to driving with out worry

 

You mean the old diff isn't out yet? Lol
if I knew it was arriving today that truck would be ready waiting for it to go right back in.

 

had to go to town this morning so I kept her together until the rebuilt unit arrived
did the swap this afternoon, but Im going to finish the rear brake reassembly in the morning & test

will update then....

 

almost there
rear brakes to button up
will finish & test & update the thread tomorrow

 

heres the new one from ECGS....currently living in my rear axle & waiting to go for a spin
(plan to test drive around noon tomorrow after I finish the rear brake reassembly)

 

first off - thanks to US marine & ECGS for help/replacement 3rd

buttoned up the rear end/rear brakes this morning
(if I did not mention it before, drum brakes are dumb)
went for a test spin & NO MORE HOWL at 60mph decel/no howl with cruise control at 60mph
problem solved !!!
went around the block 14 times for this one, but now I have won the game of patience
& hopefully this thread can help others dealing with rear diff 'HOWL'

 

That's awesome , glad I could help !!!!!

 

cheers!

 

I may have to replace mine after reading your post. My truck has 130,000 (just turned). I've been noticing a noise when at highway speeds. I think I may have to drive it while it's on a lift and have a listen.
I changed the rear diff fluid when the truck had 120K, put in Mobil 1 75W90, not for a noise, just for maintenance. I don't know if the fluid was changed before that.

I already replaced the front needle bearing with the ECGS bushing.

 

I tried many things to isolate the howl, but in the end, removing the rear driveshaft, putting it in 4hi & going for a test drive gave me the results I was looking for.....no howl with rear end disconnected from the drive train (this made me confident it was the rear diff)
I then pulled the trigger on the ECGS unit, swapped out my 'howler' diff, & as the title states 'ISSUE SOLVED"!

I damn near did a back flip once the howl was gone
sooooo nice driving without that annoying, possibly catastrophic noise

 

I may have to remove the rear shaft this weekend and see what I hear, or don't hear.

 

best way to assess the matter
& its a trip FWDing the taco!
be easy on her & dont do anything nuts while in FWD mode haha

if you lift the truck & listen it changes the dynamics as there is no load
& you may not hear anything with a scope unless its really bad
my carrier assembly looked fine on visual inspection, but there was something def wrong (worn pinion race or maybe the preload was a hair off)

good luck on your noise hunt fellow taco fan

 

UPDATE ON THE HOWL-
Ive put over 500 miles on the rebuilt ECGS diff....no howl, no leaks, & running sweeeeet
Its time for a long road trip

 

did a long run folks....put over 1000 miles on the ECGS diff from friday to sunday
trucking good (thanks ECGS) & no leaks (my rebuilding seems to be on point)

next move....310k oil change coming up
& I really should replace the front shocks soon

 

Wow, I have a 15 with 53k miles on it. I'm glad your howl went away.
Mine had the dreaded windows whistle. Tsb cured that.

 

If you havent already done so you should change your rear diff oil out asap! I can assure you your magnet is covered it metal from the diff breaking in, I had mine rebuild and put 500km on it and changed the gear oil. It would suck to have your diff go prematurely because its filled with metal.

 

before I did my 1000 mile road trip this past fri-sun, I did just that bud

thanks for looking out though
much appreciated!

just for shits & giggles, Im thinking of changing it again with my next oil change at 310k miles

 

I remembered we were in the same boat so when I saw you post I figured I’d give it a read. Glad to hear yours is back on the road noise free.

I mean if you have the fluid you definitely won’t hurt anything by changing it again. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still a decent amount of metal collected on the magnet.

Was your magnet loaded after the break in?

 

I had a really bad howl for the longest time and turned out to be my pinion bearing. Initially only when coasting, later on it was constant at any speed. It drove fine but when I had the gears done the guy told me the bearing was shot. It literally sounded like the truck was sucking air backwards through the exhaust like a vacuum

 

a few flakes & grey toothpaste
nothing major though