Icon rear shocks squeaking

[Alex T4R]

Shoot, I don't have my 4runner yet, but was going to put on Icon stage 1...hopefully this is a somewhat isolated incident. I hope ICON takes care of it for y'all.

Icon is superior company and always backs their product up, i guess maybe i'm just unlike or how i always joke not using my truck enough off road and maybe that why, j/k!

 

[deekoi]

I have the same problem. I thought it was the UCA, so I took it apart and greased the crap out of it. The rears squeak and the fronts squeak. I greased everywhere i could. Now i'll try the methods above with the t9 or drislide :frusty:

 

[Jeremy556]

I was getting oil change at the toyota dealer and i have noticed that my rear MT Long Travel shocks are leaking. I contacted MT and they said that Icon would service them, but i was wondering why are they leaking? I only have 7K miles on them and went off road once. I did have a bad seal in the beginning and was getting dry squeaky noise, but Icon serviced them and everything went away. Now they are leaking, right more then a left. I'm sure Icon will service them and stand behind their products but i was wondering if anyone has an idea why it is happening.

Gravel roads?

The Icon "shin guards" should come with all of their shocks. It protects the shaft from pitting from gravel and rocks. Without that, the shaft will pit and destroy the seals in very short order.

 

[Jeremy556]

Shoot, I don't have my 4runner yet, but was going to put on Icon stage 1...hopefully this is a somewhat isolated incident. I hope ICON takes care of it for y'all.

Any "race" suspension will make more noise and require far more maintenance than OEM, or OEM like (Bilstein, Ironman, Emu, etc).

 

[Rtar]

Another Lube option

Check out Buzzy's Slick Honey

Buzzy's USA - Premium Bicycle Lubricant

It is intended for shock stanchions. I've been using it on mountain bike suspension for years.

Rub a little around the stanchion, cycle the shocks and then wipe off the excess. Works great.

 

[DannyLlama]

Any "race" suspension will make more noise and require far more maintenance than OEM, or OEM like (Bilstein, Ironman, Emu, etc).

Why?

 

[Okki]

Gravel roads?

The Icon "shin guards" should come with all of their shocks. It protects the shaft from pitting from gravel and rocks. Without that, the shaft will pit and destroy the seals in very short order.

I am running the Icon Shin Guards... I should crawl under there some time and see how they look. I've had them since the first day I got my Stage 6 installed.

just checking, but are you sure it's your shocks? I thought I had a squeaky suspension until I realized it actually was the high-lift mounted to my Gobi rack. the carrier squeaks a bit against the main lift-beam when I cruise over bumps.

Okki

 

[Stu-Runner]

Just to pile on...I had the same issue with squeaky long travel rear icons with only a couple of thousand miles. I switched to Bilsteins and it's all good (they are a little shorter). Like someone said the exposed metal shafts on the icons get beat up and nuke the seals. Icon is great but disappointed they didn't come with the shins or rubber boots to start with. I talked to icon and I can send them in for service but what's preventing it from happening again.

Stu

 

[Jeremy556]

Why?

On a stock front coilover (or bilstein, Emu, etc), the top shock mount is fixed and the bottom shock mount uses an eye with a rubber bushing. The upper control arms use rubber bushings and a ball joint, all of these things being engineered and refined by Toyota to have the longest service life and minimal noise/vibration.

On my setup as an example (Icon, King, Fox, Radflo, etc all work the same way, just small differences in materials, valving, etc), the top plate of the shock connects to the shock with a spherical bearing, with another spherical bearing where the bottom of the shock connects to the lower control arm. The rubber bushings in the stock UCAs are replaced with poly bushings and the ball joint replaced with a uniball.

All of these spherical bearings (uniballs are spherical bearings) and poly bushings (or heims if you are really a glutton for punishment), are very strong and allow very easy movement, but have no give to them, make noise with the slightest bit of wear or contamination, and wear to the point of annoyance much faster than rubber bushings.

 

[Stu-Runner]

Nice explanation above

 

[Alex T4R]

Gravel roads?

The Icon "shin guards" should come with all of their shocks. It protects the shaft from pitting from gravel and rocks. Without that, the shaft will pit and destroy the seals in very short order.

I only went offroad once, other then that it is all on road driving. So I don't know what the cause is.

 

[deekoi]

Thanks for the info,

so what's the best way to 1. get rid of the noise (change out the bearings?)
then 2. maintenance so we don't have to change out the bearings again or as few times as possible.