Hello everybody! Good day to you! Welcome back We have over here a 2012 Doge Ram Four-wheel Drive 5.7 liter Hemi 1500 V8 It's a very pretty truck. Thank you customer! States In four-wheel drive while driving in the sand, he hears an odd buzzing noise somewhere from the drivetrain. Now, this is going to be somewhat difficult to recreate because I don't really have any sand around here. Odd type of uh, a complaint at 67 sorry, 167 463 miles on the odometer.

So what we're going to do real quick, we're gonna take it out of the road Justin too high. I'm gonna drive it around some listen for any noises that I may or may not hear. Then we'll try it in four-wheel drive. And if we can't hear anything in four-wheel drive, uh, I'll go ahead and put on the rack.

We'll visually inspect it from underneath and then if that fails, I'll go hunt down some sand and drive it through some sand to recreate the customer's condition in which the concern is present. So stay tuned because this is going to be a very good. Doge Video opening Z Hood All right, let's get this thing in the forward gear position. hit the road a little bit.

You gonna go There We go. We're rolling, rolling in, rolling rolling. Keep that gate wheel rolling. I Think what I'll do is make my normal test drive around the block, up and over the bridge and then back around the corner.

We'll start with that one and uh, see if anything happens with this. uh, this noise situation here sounds good. It's got the Doge firing order. Okay, so my first observation besides the presence of this cop car right here is that I hear from these oversized mud tires.

uh some Vibe where I feel some Vibe and I hear some noise but that's fairly normal for the equipment that we're running. So I do not believe that the tires are the cause of the complaint I hope it's not the tires because if it's the tires, that I'm on a wild goose chase and that would that would kind of bother me. however I don't think it's the tires because the complaint states that it does it in the sand and I don't think that tires make noise in the sand enough to speed I Feel like I'm in the movie Twister driving this red Doge it sounds the same as the mid 90s now I just did. Oh, not hearing any kind of weird vibe out of it.

Nothing yet. Oh Collision Collision Watch out or picnic. Oh good. The green light is ready for me yo guy green light I Hate to honk it people bro.

come on man. Seriously. Oh look, we still don't get to go. We are last all right.

So unfortunately going over those railroad tracks right behind me I did feel like a clunking noise that was occurring. Um, it sounded like it was a steering column related. but I heard it in this general area. Maybe down low.

ah, that may or may not have been it again. I was going over railroad tracks. but I did feel like I heard the intermediate shaft and the column clunk. but I don't think that.

that's that's the issue here. we'll see. Alrighty So my gravel asphalt parking lot is the closest thing that I have to some sand. So what I'm going to do is click that into neutral and we're going to put this thing in four.

Low wait for it to engage and I'll just operate right here to see if I can't make a make that sound begin sounding indicator says we're in 4 low back in Drive Let's see what happens here. Um I don't hear anything. That's a negative. Reverse backing up me.

beep beep beep I Don't hear anything in reverse. let's try to turn. let's do a full lock, turn to the left, some throttle Negative: no sound there backing up Hello Concrete guys Granite Guys: they're actually not concrete guys. they're tile, countertop guys and granite guys.

Home decor. There we go. Yeah, he's waiting on me. Alrighty I Have heard nothing yet.

I'm gonna go ahead put this thing back in two-wheel drive. We're gonna put it on the lift. We're gonna rack it up. I'm gonna do a visual inspection of the underneath Carriage uh if I can't turn up anything visually I'll restart the engine, put it back in gear and we will turn the drivetrain with the vehicle suspended and perhaps I can listen uh at that point to see if I hear anywhere noises I will.

Maybe it will all right getting her nosed in here. Let's get her set up on the rack. We'll lift it up and uh, visually inspect the underneath carrots and see what we can't come up with here. I think we're right about on the money.

CG is right here. that's center of gravity. This is kind of a long truck I'd say right there is good. All right parking.

Ziato powering down okay. I've done a couple walk arounds. we have the rack set up front. It's set in the back.

I've got it slightly off the ground. Now this is a lifted truck. It's got a big like six inch Spacer Spacer type of lift kit on it that has sort of helped me get this thing racked up because this rack doesn't extend enough to reach the frame rails in order to clear the uh, the running board here. So because of this extension, I'm able to get the the lift arms on the suspension.

So that being said, we can, uh, you can subscribe this thing or get it up in the air and commence with our visual inspection. Make sure we're safe. Not really. That's uh, too far forward.

Coming back down. I Don't like this. More adjustments are necessary. This thing has been very hard to rack up.

lifted nature. Let's see here, we'll pull that pin that's the one that locks These Arms From sliding left and right. Swing that in some Just like. So there we go.

let's try that one trying again. That's why we triple checked and then double check after that. How we doing that's more better or rear looks good. let's recheck them.

since it, uh, it came off the lift here I know we'll come off the rack one more time and then roll it forward. Yeah, we need to roll it Forward some right about right there I should be good. All right. here's a good safety example.

See that I Just had that right where it should have been. But because I let the car down, it managed to roll back some and then, uh, didn't move that out of alignment. Now that's very, very dangerous because if you don't go back and recheck on that, you could potentially pick this thing up and not notice until you're up in the air and in the danger zone. Okay, this situation has been remedied.

We got a good footprint on both the rears. good footprint on both the fronts. Now we can take her up safely. Okay, let's roll ourselves down here.

We're gonna work back to front and we're just gonna visually inspect everything we're looking for. Anything loose, misaligned, falling off, anything that's hitting other components, torn bushings, things of that nature, loose bolts, you name it. anything could be causing this random noise we have yet to create it or recreate it, but I do believe it's there. I've seen a video so let's see: Rear Sway Bar Hardware Looks okay.

Let's give it a shake real quick and that seems to be all right. So we have our bushings. Those are okay. Stabilizer link that feels pretty good.

It's solid. solid. Okay, that's all right. All right.

Nothing standing out to me back here. Let's move to the front side of this axle. see what we've got going on over there? Yeah, that's safe. No worries, we're good.

Okay, that's tight. I Don't see any evidence of this little lift bracket moving around against the shackle. That looks okay. This scrubbing action right here is from these, uh, brake line or brake cables running into it.

That's not the noise. check s and U-joints if we have a U-joint noise I Don't see anything here just yet. Pry bar need pry bar Okay, so what I'm gonna do is try to put some side load on these bearings here. bruh U-joints Rather, there are bearings in the U-joint but I'm looking for some motion, any kind of play or something loose? Uh, I Don't think we're gonna get that out of this rear view joint.

Let's check. uh, the front one up here real quick. It's a little darker in this area. side load being applied.

No movement there. Now these could be binding. It's very possible that it's got a U-joint that's binding. so there's not slop in it, but it doesn't want to turn freely.

and when it's in certain parts of its rotation at a certain speed and frequency that can cause the vibration, it's possible. Um, since the guy mentioned that they drive through sand with this, when it does go off-road there's a good possibility sand got into one of these universal joints and has Uh has damaged it. It's doable. if possible, you know it's not moving either.

All right, so no weird abnormal play. Let's try to rotate this some it feels okay, but again, there's not much motion out of it because this is a fairly straight line so that universal joint really doesn't get too uh to move much I may unbolt this and check this thing by hand later on. Let's continue with the visual inspection. First, we seem to have moved on to the front axle.

Let's see, we've got. There's some damage here from the steering knuckle hitting the lower control arm during turns. That's a byproduct of a lift kit. There's nothing to be done about that.

That's the Uh, that's the lock stop for the steering and again, since it's been lifted. Uh, steering has a little bit more Motion in it and it's allowing things to contact uh, that normally wouldn't contact. Yeah, we can see more of it over here on this side, so it's a possibility that maybe while turning full lock and going over some terrain, this thing moving around is causing, uh, causing some kind of noise. That's that's possible.

Looking in that hole there, we could use some Brakes in the future. See that encryption material is getting a little low about five thirty seconds of an inch. but that's not our concern. Let's see.

this stuff all looks like it's tight. I should probably check this just to make sure that the lift kit itself is installed and in good condition. that looks tight. See where anything's been moving around? Let's go around the front of the front axle.

We'll take a peek over here. tight squeeze, look at that. I'm glad I took those shelves out over here because had I not then. uh well, we wouldn't be able to be here right now.

Well here we got something that's uh, that sway bar bushing's a little worn out. See the Gap in there that Gap really shouldn't be there. It's not horrible I Doubt it's causing the noise, but it's worth noting. Same thing on these sway bar bushings.

here. they're they're pretty smashed in. Uh, not going to cause the noise or probably not going to cause the noise. It's possible, but uh, we just don't know.

Um I don't see much going on on that side. Similar situation with this bushing. a little bit of wear. same thing with that bushing.

a little bit of wear. Again, not horrible and probably not the noise that we were describing, but uh, that's going to go on the list of recommendations. Control Arm Bushings: How are these guys looking? They can't get some fry action in here. It's a no motion on the front.

Let's check that rear one. Negative: No motion on that. Let's rotate. Let me go back around to the back side for a better view.

Let's take a look at the CV axles on this front. Do we hear anything heard? like a click? Yeah. I Just hear gears moving around inside that differential. I Don't think that that that's the issue either.

Let's check this CV for some excessive play. and that's not really not horrible either. A little bit of motion, but nothing crazy. Trick: Uh, check this side over here.

That's a little more motion that I would expect. actually. Okay, so I'm frying uh with the pry bar on the axle shaft in order to generate some motion right here in this inner inner joint. And what we can see, there's an output shaft coming from the differential which slips into a splined bore inside of this, uh, section of the axle and we can see there's a lot of motion in that.

All right. So in order to uh, be a comprehensive on this inspection, like I said earlier, I'm going to go ahead and disconnect this front drive shaft. It's just got four bolts that kind of hold her in and they're tight bolts too. You come unclicked, Come on.

now it's coming out. That's some crustiness going on in there. You see that come out. Let's uh, look at these other three out.

What I'm gonna do is just disconnect this and I'm going to move this yoke right here by hand and I'm gonna feel if it's binding or not there. We go. halfway out. these bolts do not want to come out.

Come on you. Oh seriously got it. Hit me in the foot. Ooh didn't expect that to be.

There must be a spacer due to the, uh. presence of the lift kit. Let's see how this thing feels. Uh huh.

We got a problem with this U-joint See that clicky business right there and then up and down. more clicky business. So this drive shaft has not had enough articulation inside of it to maintain a smooth wear pattern. It's got dead spots watch.

Yeah, it naturally wants to hang out in that position, which means there is some wear inside of this U-joint I'm also going to recommend rebuilding this uh front drive shaft. That's probably our problem more than anything else that we found. I Believe this right. here is going to be the issue with this truck: A Little Closer See if we can't see this in Greater detail.

they should want to like spring back if I get it just right, see how it kind of favors? Yeah, well. I can feel it. You guys can't feel it unfortunately because you're inside of the camera. but we definitely have some wear inside of this.

Universal right here and this is interesting I Don't think this U-joint is replaceable. See how these cups are staked in? There's like no clip inside of here or no snap ring, no snap rings. I Don't think this Universal is uh, is serviceable. We may have to replace the drive shaft.

Yeah. I can't get those guys out now with those stakes in there? Nope. Nope. Nope.

All right, Let me go see if I can't Source the drive shaft to go along with the other drive shafts to go along with the steering or suspension stabilizer bar stuff and then we'll go from there. Alrighty I Believe we have seen enough of this. uh, front drive shaft. So I'm gonna put this thing back on considering that we've uh, rented the vehicle in Operative and it's not going to sit here until we get approval.

So I'm gonna put this back together, see how this is gonna work, and let's get it all lined up like these. Uh, these bolts don't really turn that freely. All right. where's my gun? Thank you.

Give that back to me. What is this? It's not okay. Oh I almost fell out of my chair falling back. Okay, let's get another bolt in.

so this thing's not running all sideways like and that around that did not thread like I thought there. Look at this one in. Come on. Okay, that one's threaded.

dude. Supply Some torqueage. Get this thing back on. Come on now.

Slip. Click it. This gun is kind of hard to control I think I'm gonna try to locate the uh, the less powerful version because this rigid is a beast. Octane was a little easier to manipulate and bulky, but it's got full loads more power.

Okay, drive shaft is in. let's get out from under here. I'm gonna go and uh, work up this estimate for all these components and uh, we'll see what we're gonna do with it. all.

Right, back around to our lift controls here. let's get this thing off the lock. We're gonna let her down and uh, real quick. Uh, while it's still on the rack, I'm gonna get a pry bar under these front wheels and I'm just gonna check out the ball joints.

If this thing has enough wear on it to, uh, cause a U-joint to fail, then it's probably got enough wear on it to cause a ball joint to fail I Want to check that real fast too while we're uh, while we're going through all this. so what we're going to need is not that drawer, this one more pry bar. Let's get the Kirby one. So as it sits, the front suspension is unloaded meaning the control arms are bearing no weight of the vehicle and if there is play in these, ball joints should be able to feel it as I pick up on this thing.

Let me uh, let's crawl down below here and take a look at it as I pry on it. We can see if there's any Motion in these lower balls and the survey says that's a negative. Those ball joints looks good. that one didn't move Let's uh, let's try to check for a little bit of play in this upper.

you can get some leverage on it. No no Motion in that upper. Okay, I think that side's good. Real quick check on the Uh driver side and our evaluation will be complete.

Let's see if I can't feel anything out of this one prying up on it. If there is play, you'll feel it bump. You'll feel that uh, those ball joints moving around and they'll have like a steady cloak to them. Check this one here.

Nothing there. Try some downplay down pressure on it. Nope. I Don't see anything happening with that upper so that's in good shape.

I Think we're good about 90? Sure we. uh, we found the cause like I said I need to go work this up and bounce this off the owner and we'll see what we're gonna do. Coach Suspension Articulation Oakley Dokely Do I have created an estimate. It's been submitted raw for approval.

Need to climb up into this building here. It's been sent off and submitted for approval. That's going to take a slight amount of extra time because there is an aftermarket warranty company involved here. so we've got to go through their process of approval.

So that being said, I I Know for a fact that I'm not going to get an answer on this car. I I would expect to be able to get one because the warranty company has been dealing with this situation with this truck for quite, uh, quite a long amount of time. The problem is is after like two dealerships and like two, or three, or four or whatever I forget the exact number. but after multiple attempts from other facilities to attempt any kind of diagnosis, uh, nobody's been able to come up with Uh with a viable suggestion or solution for this vibration issue.

Now I do recognize that I was not able to recreate. that's pretty close I wasn't able to recreate the vibration, but based on the video that I saw and the customer's description, uh, when the symptom takes place combined with what we found down below, especially that driveshaft U-joint I do believe that I'm onto something here. so we're going to go with what we have found out so far. We got a couple worn suspension parts.

um I don't think the sway bar links were the cause of the noise I'm like 99 sure that the noise is either caused by that CV axle or the U-joint in the drive shaft or it could have been both. Um, either way, I have found faults in two of those components and I'm going to recommend that. Uh, we replace at least that right front CV axle and we replaced the the U-joint or the front output shaft drive shaft that's the one that goes from the transfer case behind the transmission forward up to the front differential. Anyways, I will consider this a successful diagnosis.

we have a plan to move forward with I've got viable and decent recommendations and even if what I found is not actually the exact cause of the vibration, we still found faults in the vehicle which is something we can pursue with regarding future repairs. All that being said, I'm gonna have to save those future repairs for after we get an approval so we can expect a part due on this particular Doge Ram 1500 5.7 However, at this time we are dead in the water and I will not be able to move forward with any uh, any repairs at this exact time. So so that being said, I'm going to go ahead and close this video out right about now. Powering down as always like thank you guys for watching this video I Certainly hope you enjoyed this video.

If you did enjoy this video, you know the drill. Please feel free to let me know about that by tapping that like button down below. Drop me a comment or two while you're down there. and most importantly, do not forget to have yourselves a great day! See you guys later in the video into Doge in a day in a diagnosis Thank you.