I was rear ended. Could it have knocked something loose?

I was rear ended about a month ago. I immediately started hearing a knocking sound while going over bumps at low speeds. At high speeds I don’t hear anything. Is it possible that the leaf springs were damaged or something else? The damage to the rear bumper was very minimal. One tiny little scratch, but I felt the impact.

 

perhaps something got smacked loose? Crawl under the truck and grab stuff and give them some hard wiggles by hand? Do you have the stock spare? it could have loosened the spare and you need to re-tighten it?

 

The spare was very loose but I snugged that up last week and the sound persists. Only at low speeds. Only thing I can think of is the shocks or leaf springs. I’ll try grabbing around there.

 

your bumper end skirts could have been bent in and the body over bumps is hitting the bumper, near the tail lights check the gap line.

 

I think you would have noticed this but perhaps the exhaust moved too

 

The two back fenders both have a very weak supports that prevents the fenders from moving. They are notorious for rusting out. Located in front of each rear tire, there at a 45 degree angle. Check those, one may be rusted out and the bump cause it to let go.

 

lift up on each corner of the bed to see if the bed bolts are loose

 

Ok, I will. I already inspected the bolts from the top to see if they were loose but I haven’t tried lifting on it. Thank you.

 

They actually were but I tightened the rusty bolts last weekend and the sound persisted.

 

When I bought mine, one or two were loose and it took me a few weeks to figure out it was play in the bed bolts causing knocks over bumps. The crappy thing is they were rusted in place, and I ended up using an angle grinder to get one out.

 

Use the money from the insurance to have it looked at....

 

Where did you lift up on the bed? From what point on the vehicle?

 

That’s what I plan on doing but I’d like to have an idea what’s wrong since there’s next to no visual damage.

 

Man, its been almost 10 years but I think just each corner of the bed and the middle of the wheel wells. I was able to locate it that way. If I remember right both front bolts had play, but the passenger side was worse. It was pretty easy to identify.

Now I get about the same noise, but its just some spare junk tools I keep in the cubby's in the back.

 

Well, you were right. I finally decided to look back at the back window while driving. I can SEE the camper shell hitting the back window. lol. Wow.

 

Just a note: The bed bolts can be 100% tight and the bed still rock up and down. There is a crush sleeve so it's pretty much not possible to overtighten and crush your composite bed, HOWEVER, the composite bed can wear where it touches the frame and sink downwards away from the bed bolt head. Some folks make a spacer to go between the frame and the bed to lift it back up into position. Not saying this is what's causing your bed to move around, but it is possible.

How much space is between your cab and canopy on flat ground? got any pics. Sounds bad if it's hitting the rear window.

 

Hey, we're almost twins. Was it a car wash that took out your antenna, by chance?



Gap doesn't look that bad on the canopy, but it looks like yours curves a lot more than my old canopy, so maybe it's closer than it looks to the window. Let us know what you find out.

 

Yup. Car wash in New Jersey. Still on my list of things to replace.