Creeping noise on passenger by side after suspension lift, need help please.

After installing a 3” suspension lift on my 2020 CM, I’m getting a creeping noise coming from front passenger side. It’s driving me insane. Noticeable when turning, at low speed and coming over a small bump. My tires aren’t rubbing on anything, have plenty of clearance. I have retorqued everything three times now. I sprayed some white lithium grease on the UPC & low bottom shock collar. I went with good components, just need to find out where and what’s causing the creep. Any help or advice would be great. Don’t know what to do next, want to fix it before it gets worse.

 

Check the dust shield on the rotor, sometimes it gets kinked and will come in contact just a bit

 

Did you rule out the skid plate yet (try driving with it off)? This is notorious for making noise.

 

Yes I did.

 

Yes I did. Took it off and drove it for day without it, I can still hear it.......

 

Thinking I might remove the front sway bar and see if that's where the creeping noise is coming from. Don't know if bushings are dry or need to be replaced. Hard to believe that they need to be replaced with less that 30k miles.

 

My money is on sway bar. 3 inch lift is probably when you would start to stress it

 

No regrets since removing my front sway bar.

 

But do you regret not doing it sooner?

 

How difficult is it to remove and reinstall?

 

Immensely

removal took about 42 seconds. It’s never going back on so couldn’t tell ya about re-install.

 

If you still have the front skid plate off, it's 6 bolts and done. Removing the skid is the worst part of the whole deal.

 

What are solutions if you want to keep the front sway bar? Extensions?

 

Earmuffs

 

Update. So I removed the sway bar and skid plate and the creeping noise is still there but not as loud. It’s better but still annoying the hell out of me. Wonder why the creeping noise is happening at low speed and usually when I turn left, any ideas? Don’t know what to do next?!

 

Did you tighten/torque all of the components before setting the vehicle on the ground? What method did you use to remove/install the coilovers? For example, did you unbolt the lower ball joint from the knuckle and slip the CO down and out? Or loosen the alignment tabs and drop the lower arms? Since you put on new UCA’s, you obviously unbolted the upper ball joint, too.

All of the components should be torqued after the vehicle is resting on the suspension instead of up on Jack stands with the suspension drooped. A arms, UCA through bolt, lower shock bolt (the upper bolts on the shock tower are fine to torque with the wheels in the air, but give them another pass with the vehicle on the ground), sway bar links, etc. If you torque anything with a bushing in it while the suspension is dropped out, the bushing can bind and squeak at ride height. If you tightened them all down before dropping them vehicle off the Jack stands, I would lift the truck back up, loosen things, drop it back down, then torque them.

I suspected the sway bar end linked as has been suggested earlier.

I had a similar squeak a while back that behaved similarly after swapping suspensions. In my haste, I tightened a few thing down before setting the vehicle down but didn’t think about it. Squeak Drove me nuts. Looked hard at the skid plate, too. I finally put it all back up in the air and loosened all the bolts, dropped it down and tightened it back up. The squeak was gone.

My sequoia had a similar squeak in the rear suspension after swapping in new shocks. Turns out the rear shocks need some hefty torque on the top mount to make it right and tight, so follow the torque spec instead of going by uggah-duggahs.

 

Mine does the same thing. Not every left turn. Slower ones, maybe more so turning on an incline or a turn that made the body roll. A slight creep/clunking sound.

 

Did you lube the bushings and that upper control arm ball joint? I tested a few ptfe lubes on that ball joint and the best that made no noise is Triflow.

 

Yes I lubed all the bushings.

 

So I’ve gone and retorqued everything that I could while I had the tires & wheels on the truck (under load). There are some areas that I can’t get my torque wrench in to torque while the tires & wheels are on. I can’t get my torque wrench on the upper control arms pass through bolts & lower ball joint bolts cause there’s not enough room between the bolts and the 17” wheels. I can access all the bolts as long as I have the tires & wheels off. Any advice or how are guys able to do this with the tires on?

 

Ever figure this out?

 

Ended up taking it to a shop and they looked over the suspension, retorqued everything. Noise is still there, they basically told me the noise is coming from the UCA Uni-Ball. He was saying that Uni-Balls are stronger than ball joints but are noisy. Can anybody confirm that Uni-Balls are more noisier that ball joints? Was also told that with time they will get noisier. Trying to figure out if I want to see if replacing the Uni-Ball will on will quiet it down, or go with ball joint UCA. What are your guys thought's?

 

If properly installed and lubed, they should be quiet. They do require some cleaning and re-lubing since they are exposed to the elements. If they were all noisy, why isn’t your drivers side making the same noise?

 

When I installed the the UCA the Uni-Balls were already installed. Yeah I was wondering why the only the passenger Uni-Ball was the only one making noise, don't know the chances are that I have one that is bad. I've cleaned them and have tried lithium grease, dry lube. How do you recommend cleaning them and what kind (brand) of lube do you use?

 

I don't have Uniball uppers on mine to give you my experience. This is what Total Chaos recommends:

https://www.tundras.com/threads/tot...ce-lubricating-bushings-uniballs-video.27032/