Help Identifying a Noise

[StartedWith97TJ]

I am about to pull my hair out, so I am reaching out to the community for help identifying an intermittent noise. I have done some troubleshooting already, and even tried a local 4x4 shop, but so far the noise is winning the battle. Here is the list of things I know about the noise, along with some of the things I have already tried. Give it a read, and please share your advice.

• The noise only occurs while actively turning the steering wheel, and while moving
• I have cranked the steering wheel back and forth many times, but I have not been able to get it to make the noise when the vehicle is not moving
• The noise sounds like a lower pitch squeak or low grade clunk. It is not a high pitch squeak or squeal.
• The noise is intermittent, even when driving in circles in a parking lot. It occurs while turning the wheel to the left or the right, but does not typically occur at full lock in either direction.
• The noise is pretty clear in the cab, but is difficult to hear outside of the Jeep. Being a diesel does not help - the usually beautiful sound makes it hard to pickup other faint noises.
• I installed the full Clayton 1.5 inch Overland kit about 6 months ago, and hit has been whisper quiet until now
• I retorqued everything in the front (track bar, tie rod, drag link, ball joints, end links, control arms, shocks, steering stabilizer, and steering shaft brace). It actually may have gotten a little more pronounced (or maybe just more frequent) after retorquing everything (not my goal).
• I have engaged and disengaged the 4-wheel drive system to ensure something wasn't partly engaged
• Engaged and disengaged the sway bar a few times. Hard to test in a parking lot with 4-wheel drive engaged, so not entirely sure if the noise occurs with the sway bar disconnected.
• Drove the front onto several large curbs to see if the noise occurred when compressing the front shocks, but the noise did not occur when climbing or dropping back down.
• I torqued the side step rails a few months ago and painted them to mark them, and they have not moved. I checked, because the sound is similar to how it sounded when my friends were coming loose last year.
• I have jumped up and down on the side rails, and I get occasionally get a slight noise, but not enough to tell if it is the same noise.
• I tried using a jack to compress the front springs, but there were no noises.
• Steering is good; it tracks down the highway fine; no new looseness/play in the steering wheel

I have never had ball joints fail, so I am not familiar with the noises they make, or when they would occur (related to steering wheel movement and rolling status). I have not tried lubing anything yet, because all the Clayton stuff is new and sealed. The sway bar could potentially be lubed, but with only 47k miles, they looked ok to me. I could lube them, but wasn't exactly sure the best stuff to use.

The 4x4 shop was about useless. They agreed they heard the noise, but could not always reproduce it, and could not reproduce without moving, so they gave up. It drives me nuts, so I want to get it resolved, but my efforts have so far been useless. Like I said, I think it became more frequent after I retorqued everything.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you are willing to share.

Keep Jeep'n

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[StartedWith97TJ]

Just in case, I climbed under this morning and checked all the bolts on the rear suspension, and all the paint marks are still spot on, so I don’t think anything is loose in the rear.

Looking forward to hearing from some others I am always impressed by the Knowledge found at this site.

Keep Jeep’n

 

[Upnarms]

Need a video or recording. I had a noise and eventually found it to be the sector shaft brace collar piece was too loose. You mentioned a steering brace, so i thought maybe worth a second look. I have the steer smarts one

 

[Upnarms]

This was the noise coming from mine. Probably not exactly what you describe but if you do have a sector shaft brace make sure it's been thoroughly ruled out

 

[StartedWith97TJ]

I have not had any luck recording the noise yet. Between it only occurring while the vehicle is moving and it being a diesel, my phone hasn’t picked up the noise. It is even stranger that you can’t hear it outside the vehicle much at all. In the cab is the best place to hear it.

I checked the torque on the steering brace bolts I can quickly access without disconnecting other parts and they were all spot on.

I will try to record the sound again tonight. Maybe I will get lucky and the phone will actually hear it.

 

[StartedWith97TJ]

Update —> I have some good news and bad news. I finally isolated the noise. It is coming from my EAG body bolt mounted rock sliders. The noise was coming from the connection point at the front frame bolt. These were pre-installed by the dealer in Tampa FL. It looks like the morons reversed the spacer and body isolator end cap. I retire things regularly, so I guess I was inadvertently masking their shitty work.

i don’t have the product info or install docs or anything about the sliders. I identified them using a photo and Google search.

When I install things correctly, the noise is gone, but things do not appear to mount completely flush. I searched for install videos for EAG/Barracuda/Smitty (since they are the same parent company making them), but I couldn’t find any videos with clear shots of the front isolator during and after install. If you have these, please share photos of the slider attached to the front isolator frame point. When I hit 92 ft lbs of torque, the sliders are not flush to the body (or even sitting the same on both sides).

Another task that has proven to be too difficult for a dealer tech . It is a shame, because there are some really good dealer mechanics out there, but at this point, it is difficult to find the good ones.

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