Hey everyone, I've got a problem with a high pitch squeal that seems to come from either the engine or transmission (I can't tell exactly) when I'm accelerating and the tach hits right around 4,000 rpm. If I let off the gas, it quits, sometimes it'll briefly quit while staying on the gas, then it comes right back. It's a 2001 Ram 1500 4x4 with a 5.9 and roughly 275,000 miles. I'm currently in the process of chasing down multiple vacuum leaks but this doesn't sound like a vacuum leak whistle, it sounds more like a bearing or metal-to-metal squeal. It's been doing it for a while now, I've dropped the trans pan and valve body checked and replaced solenoids, adjusted the bands, and replaced several various pulleys just out of general maintenance practice, nothing I have tried yet seems to fix it. Any help is greatly appreciated as I am pulling what little hair I have out lol.

 

Care to post a video of the squeal so that we can hear it? You can post the video to YouTube and provide a link to it in a reply in this thread, if desired. What does the oil look like and is the oil pressure good?

 

My pulleys looked good last year when I had a high pitched noise, but then found the balancer portion of crank pulley was separated from the rubber and backed into my timing cover just barley scraping it… I still have photo….everything on pulley is tight, and I even tried to move with prybar and no go….you can see how far it slipped back off the rubber and the scrape on balancer in photo….this happened twice on my 95 and now a 3rd time with my current 02 ram
and with it running there was zero wobble

 

Is the belt tentioner stuck allowing the belt to sequel?

 

Fan clutch?

 

I will try and get a recording of it next chance I get. I never even thought about it.

 

I will definitely take a look at it!

 

Nope, the tensioner is working exactly as it should from what I can tell. It's hard to diagnose because it only happens when driving, not in neutral while revving the engine.

 

I'll post a video of it as soon as I can. The oil gets changed regularly and topped off frequently. There is no sign of antifreeze in the oil, it gets black by the time I change it, but it doesn't smell burnt. It's losing oil somewhere. I just recently dropped the pan and replaced the oil pump and rear main seal because the pressure kept dropping out while sitting at an idle. It still bottoms out, jumps back up, bottoms out, jumps back up after replacing the pump and the oil pressure sensor, and still losing oil somewhere....I've got seepage around the valve covers, but not enough to be the source (roughly 1qt per 1,000 miles). The bottom side of the motor is oil-free since I did the rear main seal. It's got the Hughes intake so it's not going into the manifold as it did with the kegger. This truck has just really got me stumped. Given the mileage, and the fact that its previous owner abused it, it's probably due for a motor rebuild.

 

Good question. I'll take a look at it. It hasn't been replaced in a few years.