Obnoxious Squeaky noise thoughts?...

anyone else experience this noise and know what to do?
It showed up after raising my suspension another inch.
Thanks.

 

Also, what is a safe lubricant to use to test out the area and see if a certain component is the culprit?

 

Thank you!

 

That is what I was hoping for.
Now to figure out and fix the noise....lol

 

Wurth HHS 2000 spray lubricant is another good option for weird squeaks. It has a solvent that draws the actual grease into parts and then after the solvent evaporates it just leaves behind the grease. It is also totally compatible with plastic bushings and has anti-corrosive properties.

 

Is your swaybar rubbing on the lower end of the spring or spring perch? Our made contact and squeaked after installing a lift. Torch, and probably others make a spacer kit to offset the swaybar slightly and eliminate the contact point. It resolved the squeak for us.

We used worth hhs 2000 until I got the swaybar drop kit, it would last 1-2 weeks.

 

Well. Overtime the squeak has gotten worse. I finally ordered some dry film lubricant and doused the suspension from top to bottom. I had hope to spray a component at a time to try and eliminate the sounds. But after the first three locations and no change I just sprayed away.
The end result was no change to the squeak. So I’m back to square one; the only thing it may mean is it’s an area that lubricant can’t reach. Maybe the sealed portions of the bushings?
Time to get it back to the install shop again.
To be continued....

 

I’ll give it a try. Never know. At this point the noise makes me wish I never lifted the truck. But then I realize, whatever it is can be fixed with enough time.

 

Did you check your sway bar to ensure it is not rubbing on the lower spring seat on the front shock? This is a common issue after lifting a tacoma, common enough that you can buy the sway bar drop kit on ebay, Amazon, or many tacoma sites for about $20-30.

 

Yeah: I am pretty sure it isn’t rubbing. Plus I have a sway bar spacer installed.
I’ll triple check it though. Thx

 

I had a squeak that I thought was my suspension and it ended up being my hood latch. Try throwing a little grease on it just to see.

 

I just noticed, your Tacoma looks to be a lot newer than my 2006. In your video I don't see the sway bar when the wheel turns. My sway bar on the 2nd gen runs across the front under the radiator and then cuts back inside the fender wells and pass the lower spring seat (was definitely making contact there on mine). Maybe the sway bar is different on your 3rd gen. Either way, it sound like a metallic squeak to me, metal on metal. My troubleshooting process for squeaks like this which led me to find our squeak was a process of spraying lubricant on each joint or friction point, one at a time, until the squeak stopped. The last point sprayed would be the culprit. making sure to include points like the lower control arm inner joints or up control inner bushings.

I did notice in your video (nice video by the way) when watching the squeaks (8, 24, 41 and 53 seconds) in slow motion, the squeak mostly happens at about resting position and during shock extension. One other thought, the upper control arm on my 2nd gen is torqued so that the bushings twist when the arm moves up or down from its resting position. Whenever I adjust height of a vehicle I make sure to release that inner bolt tension, set the suspension to resting height and then torque it back up. I doubt that is the source of your squeak but...

 

That’s interesting, a guy that I wheel with has a second gen and had the same issue with the sway bar. Actually it may have been his wheel hitting the sway bar.
I usually try and get a stethoscope out for noises like this. But it’s hard because I can’t rock my truck and use the stethoscope at the same time. the other thing is, the noise started with what you saw in the video, but now it is worse and when I jump on the sliders to rock the truck it is there consistently.
One of these days I’ll figure it out.

 

Sway bar on 3rd gen.

 

AH! I had a friend bounce on the truck while I was on the stethoscope too. Good call there, very useful tool if you can get someone to help out; until you accidentally whack the stethoscope on something solid and nearly blow your ears out.

And that sway bar does look essentially the same as the 2nd gen now that you showed the picture. I can also see the clearance between the sway bar and the spring seat like you said.

If you do try the lubrication-per-contact/friction point, maybe start with anything that was loosened or directly effected last time you made the height adjustment.

 

So if I loosened my UCA bolt and the top hat bolt while the truck is on the ground and then tighten them back up do you think that would release the tension and could possibly help? Or do I need to lift it then loosen? I might give that a try....

 

That is my go-to practice for setting UCA although I have to admit, I picked this up on the Audi world where UCA inner bushing premature failure is a common issue from torquing them at full extension.

while I still do this, and just did it a few days ago on our Tacoma, I don’t know if it is a standard practice in the Tacoma world and I suspect it is more for preventing bushing failure than squeaking. I did mine on the ground, no jacks, since there is enough room to reach over the tire. On an Audi, you have to remove the wheel and then support the hub with a jack since you cannot reach over the tire. And I don’t know that the top hat bolts are involved in this, just the long bolt that runs fore-aft through the inner UCA.

I would go the route of getting an assistant to bounce the truck while you probe with the stethoscope or spraying the friction points with lubricant(one point at a time) and then bounce the truck yourself to detect when the noise goes away. Lubricant will wash off, it’s not a solution, just a means to find the source so you can fix the problem.

 

Special attention to 6:50 in the video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a51Ryojuim0