Hey guys,

Two days ago, I noticed a fairly loud ticking noise seeming to come from the front passenger side of the truck. Pretty much came out of nowhere. The ticking is only audible while accelerating with the truck in gear, and, as a test, I tried holding the brake and slightly pressing the gas pedal while stationary. Also audible. At idle, in Park or Neutral, there is no noise at all, including when revving the engine.

I rebuilt the engine last year at around this time, torqued flexplate bolts to spec on reinstallation. Considering the tick is absent unless the transmission is engaged, I'm confident the noise isn't coming from the engine/flexplate.

I believe there is an exhaust leak at the passenger side exhaust manifold to downpipe flange, but I don't see how putting the truck in gear would amplify the noise. Hoping to get around to fixing this soon.

I replaced the rear driveshaft U-joint about two years ago. The front end has the original U-joint, but it doesn't sound to be coming from here. Then again, trying to listen for the source in the cab can be deceiving. Could pull the driveshaft to verify.

I'm leaning more to a transmission issue... I searched for a slight tick in the past, ended up being the transmission. Changed the filter and fluid with ATF+4, no change. Slightly overfilled the transmission and it went away.

Truck currently has 80K miles.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, cab noise can be very deceiving. I had the front u-joint go out on my RWD driveshaft and I coulda swore the noise was coming from the carrier bearing in the middle. I even sat in the bed of the truck while the wife drove and it still sounded like it was coming from the carrier bearing. I would keep the u-joints on your suspect list for the time being.

 

The ticking for me was the exhaust. It only happened under acceleration on a hill I have to go over to get to the interstate. The studs had broken. I made a post about drilling them out and fixing it.
Try putting a wrench on the nuts and bolt heads to see if anything turns freely indicating it is broken. I found out that they put these things together w/o an exhaust gasket

 

I had a ticking that too, a while back. I hadn’t wrenched bolts connecting the exhaust manifolds to the Y pipe tight enough.

 

Started up the truck before going to work tonight, definitely an exhaust leak. Loud and clear when cold. There's some black soot buildup around the manifold to downpipe area. It got much worse fairly quick. This might explain the random backfire through the exhaust on the rare occasion, loss of power at heavy throttle, and poor fuel economy from throwing off the O2 sensor.

I'll pick up some stainless steel bolts and replace the rusted ones on there this morning after work. The bolt retainers (P/N: 4004001AB) that prevent the bolts from turning while tightening the nuts rusted away and broke off. Makes installation much easier, but they don't last very long. I plan on ceramic coating the exhaust manifolds at some point like on my Slant. Exhaust manifold studs/bolts are the worst.

Thanks for the replies, guys.