2nd Gen - Mysterious Looseness & Grinding

Yea, I’ll give that a shot.

My goal is to basically take the front suspension off the truck in a few weeks when I can get access to a full garage & tools and go through everything.

Maybe by doing that I’ll either find the culprit or just by pulling and re-installing everything it’ll magically disappear.

 

It's not uncommon for ball joints to internally be crapped out but not show any signs of it. Could be that. When we have problems with those we typically poke a very tiny hole in the boot with a needle and spray some silicone spray lubricant which have the small straw attachments in the joint in question. If the issue goes away, great now we can scrap the junk joint. If it doesn't, great, let's seal it up with a small dab of RTV silicone.

 

Also great advice. I’ll give this a try as well. Thanks!

 

Well - unfortunately neither spraying the lower shock mount or spraying silicone lube into the LBJ did anything.

Out of frustration a started vigorously shaking my truck and was able to recreate part of the sound. I think the “popcorn” clunking sound is coming from whatever is loose as well.

Here’s a new video. It’s NOT the clicking sound, it’s the loose, deep grinding noise. The video also doesn’t show anything, it’s just for the audio.

https://streamable.com/g092x8

 

Jesus that is an awful sound, well if you can duplicate it by shaking it like that it is most likely suspension related. have you tried spaying the upper ball joints or pumping grease in them?

 

Can you use a floor jack to jack up one side of the front - likely behind the front cab mount, but on the frame. This way you can do a few tests. I know you said you checked/replaced the LBJ and UBJ, but you can still check for some things.

-while sitting on the ground, grab the wheel at 9 and 3 and push/pull with your hands. Thats the home test for wheel bearing/tie rods. Also try spinning the wheel. Did you replace the inner tie rods? @05Taco4x4 sells an assembled pair for a very reasonable price on here. This video is helpful too. When my wheel bearing went out, it caused some weird issues like grinding and pulling when I was braking. But as soon as I did that test, I knew what it was. Also he sells them as a pair because if one is bad, the other one is soon to follow. Best to do both while youre there. A crunching/grinding sound is probably the bearings. Mine went out around 75k. I would also replace the seals that go with your CVs. Maybe even a drain/refill of your front diff?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvKWGjmPKoc

-also while sitting there, you can grab the wheel at 12 and 6. Thats the test for upper/lower BJs, but you shouldnt have any play.

From reading your post, it seems like its something to do with moving parts when youre rolling. Unless its internal to your engine (it shouldnt be), then brakes, rock in your brake dust shield, wheel bearings, cv dust seals, the pins in the brake caliper..

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/wheel-bearings-hubs-press-service-4x4-prerunner.537080/

 

@PopeHodge check the torque on your calipers too. I just recently saw someone's rear caliper conversion come apart. Not sure if there were any noises before it, but Id still check the fronts.

 

Thanks to both of you. Right now I live in an apartment so all of my jack/jack stand equipment is spread out at different family members places, but I’m working on getting access to them soon to do some more in depth checking.

 

Let us know. If it happens when rolling, Id put some $ on wheel bearings if you havent checked for that yet.

 

I replaced both wheel bearings and hub assemblies less than 5k miles ago - but at this point, I’m not ruling anything out until I can take stuff apart.

 

Watching your first video it reminded me of when my lower ball joint was shot, lifted the truck up and nothing seemed loose and the boot was good but when took the two bolts out of the bottom of the knuckle the ball joint just flopped around. I would try lifting your truck up and taking the 2 19 mm bolts.

 

Well - unfortunately no good updates.

Checked all of the above and everything was good.

Took it to a small local shop yesterday morning. They just called and said that “the noise is definitely coming from the transfer case”. ????????

I’m even more at a loss now. Truck has never been abused in any manner off-road, shifts into and out of 4wd fine. Not sure how I would have a bad transfer case, especially when it seems the only issues I can find by searching is with the actuators.

I didn’t have them do anything. Going to pick the truck up in the morning but that “diagnosis” just throws in another wrench that I’m not sure what to do with.

 

Change the tcase fluid and look for metal shavings?

 

Yea - that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow when I get the truck back. I just changed it probably 8k miles ago and everything was clean.

 

Transfer case fluid was clean. No chunks at all.

The way they diagnosed it was they put a stethoscope on the transfer case while on the lift and moved the steering wheel back and forth. Said that the case has a lot of noise.

The way I understand it is - of course it has a lot noise. It’s a transfer case. It’s going to be loud if you have a stethoscope on it.

Plus, I’m not sure how a transfer case would have a problem that is exacerbated by turning the wheel from 9 to 3 while driving.

 

Did you check the ball joints? And I would take a pry bar to the front end and start seeing if you can find anything loose or anything that has excessive play

 

Alright - Did quite a bit work to the truck last week and was finally able to take the front end apart. Replaced the entire LCA, bushings, and LBJ's. Re-torqued everything again (with the weight of the vehicle), and got another alignment.

Noise is still there.

In my opinion, there are only a few options left of what it could be, two of which would be extremely surprising with only ~10,000 miles (all highway/city driving) on the new suspension components.

• Bad SPC Upper Ball Joint

I did a visual inspection and didn't see anything. Other than the boot leaking a ton of grease all of the place, but there is no puncture/tear. It has some play in it but I called SPC and they said the internal spring was supposed to allow for some movement. ​

• Bad @Toytec Lifts coilover
  
• Something is going on with the front diff
• These trucks just sound like they're going to fall apart

Almost everything else has been replaced and/or checked. This has been fun.

 

Some good news - the video above is no longer relevant to what's going on. While I had the entire interior apart and was working on sound deadening the floor, I found a socket (not mine) in between the carpet and the metal floor, and that's what was causing the metal grinding that was present underneath the bed of the truck while shaking the car back and forth.

 

Changed out the radiator support mounts. That wasn’t it either.

So, as stated above, I’m convinced it’s in the SPC’s or I’ve either got a bad coilover (less than 15k highway miles) or a bad wheel bearing again already (less than 10k highway miles) even though the bearings don’t make the typical noises indicating wear.

Something I’ve noticed is that with the hotter weather this week, over 90*, the noise is worse. Any ideas what that could mean? UBJ or UCA Bushing?

 

Another sound clip that captures the noise. Really easy to hear - it’s the deep grinding noise in the background.

Happens constantly while driving under highway speeds.

What a joy this truck has been lately.

https://streamable.com/5kt0k4