Creaky noise part deux

welll after initially thinking my creaking noise came from the drivetrain area…..

its continuously done so under load on most climbs and sometimes on semi flat roads…..

however 2 new things spotted tonight….it only does it when sat down in the seat climbing, and as soon as i stand to climb it suddenly disappears….

also when out with an experience mtb'er last night, he said it was coming from my rear brake…..well i thought nah it cant be, its aligned and wheel running true and when you spin it it runs for ages free of rubbing or catching…..so he poured some water directly on the caliper and said ride up the bank now, and hey ho noise disappeared whether sat down or standing on a climb…..once the brake heated up again after a descent it started again…so test 2 he poured it on again and it disappeared…we did it 5 times, and everytime it cured it…..

tonight i put in some new pads, and gave the rotor a good cleaning with ipa alcohol and some muc off disc cleaner……and the same bloody thing again 🙁 🙁 🙁

if anything the noise is even more annoying than with new pads 🙁

tried the water test and again it cleared again until it heated up

sorry to rant on, but what the fooooooooooooooooooooooooook is going on 🙁

i cant take the noise anymore its driving me insane

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp pleaseeeeeeeeeee

anyoneeeeeeeeeeeee 🙂 please help a young deafened on the edge hombre out 🙁

Clean and grease the saddle rails and also the seatpost.

Have done a similar exercise – if not drive train check the pedals – stealthy noise from there possibly. Saddle is quite likely as per djc1245 – very annoying – and if the greasing above doesn't help just change it!

On my full sus sometimes the cables make noise rubbing against the seat tube – check that too. Good luck!

tighten the rear QR up.

ipod

How about the rear Q/R moving slightly in the drop outs? Pouring water over the rear brake would quite likely get the rear q/r wet as well.

Check the rear quick release skewer as well – clean and make sure it is tightened up correctly.

cheers guys, tried the saddle thing, tightened up and with a different seat and post….to no avail…

qr is tight, and from what i can see doesnt seem to move…..how would the qr be making the noise out of interest, also how would it move if it feels solid in the dropouts and the wheel doesnt wobble etc??

the noise is definitely the same as a sort of disc catching on pads on rotation, i just dont see how its possible when its under load?? and obviously this water test clears it…..i thought about the water could have gone anywhere on the cassette/hub/qr/brakes last night, so tonight i just poured a tiny bit of water directly into the caliper and it cleared the noise totally until i braked and it dried off….ive also never had such a problem before? bikes almost a year old now and only started about a month ago 🙁 cant see how the rear brake can cause it climbing sitting down though??? it doesnt make a bloody sound when im using it its silent as can be…..

i really wanna get this sorted, its putting me off riding 🙁

any more ideas? and theories as to why it clears when water on the calpier area???

Try removing the bolts mounting the caliper onto the frame and the bolts holding the caliper onto the adaptor if it's a post mount caliper.
Clean them, very lightly grease the threads and refit them nice and tight.
Check the rotor bolts\centrelock on the hub are tight.
Frame fault ?
Is it suspension or hardtail ?

My full suss has been squeaking for a while now and it only does it when I'm pedalling up hill. I thought it was a bearing in the suspension at first but worked out that it only does it when I pedal. It's in the shop now getting some things fixed and I've asked them to look at the bottom bracket cos I reckon that's where the squeak is.

the back end of my five creaks if the QR isn't done up super tight. well known for it apparently, don't need a lot of movement to generate noise.

It could be a few things like bottom bracket, chainrings, bolted rear dropouts, seat, cracked frame, pedals but my money is on the swing arm pivot bearings moving within their dry seats (not knackered bearings). Strip it clean the bearing seats and put some waterproof or perhaps copper grease around the bearings as you re-assemble as per the video's linked below.

http://www.gtbicycles.com/CMS/documents/GTSuspensionFrameTroubleShootingGuide.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ-4ArTBOFw&

Also check your shock mounts for play. When the bushings/reducers wear it can make a god-awful noise.

cheers guys, appreacited

its a five by the way….10 months old….could it be the bearings? ive not touched them? i clean the area, but with it being mega dusty of late where ive been riding, could it be inside there??

qr is pretty darned tight, about as tight as i can physically do it anyhoo's…..

mines is the same it only does it when pedalling up hill, or straining it slightly….again only uphill……

i just dont get why it disappears with water in the caliper though? it COMPLETELY disappears until it dries off…..

I hope we are talking about a GT i-drive 5 not an Orange 5 or something

Video of the newer GT disassembly and assembly here

http://www.gtbicycles.com/usa/eng/Video

If it's 10 months old get it sorted under warranty before the warranty runs out.

Heckler has/had this.
For that bike it's either the seat rails – I fixed by putting some material tape around the rails and tightening onto that.
Or it's the seat post insert in the frame, and around there. Tiny bits of grit get in there and crunch and squeak all the time.
Can solve it, have done a few times, but it generally comes back again soon enough.

Other than the suggestions above try unbolting the caliper and cable tie it up out the way and ride around(carefully!) like that for a while and see if the noise stays away. The water could be lubricating another part of the bike and your confusing it with the brake this way you'll know for sure. If the noise comes back with the brake unbolted from the frame i'd inspect all the welds on the frame very carefully for cracks. All it could/would look like is a tiny black mark a couple of mm long usually just above or under the weld and thats a crack starting. If it's happening while seated pay particular attention to the seatstays and top tube/seat tube areas. Been unlucky enough to have 3 bikes with creaking noises that wouldn't go away and all turned out to be cracked frames and one was brand new!

buy a bike that isn't just a load of bearings loosely held together by tubes.

i recommend anything made of steel with a rigid fork. and v brakes. and a raceface chainset. if you do so it will only creak when something is cracked and about to snap, at which stage you should dismount and walk.

sorry it is an orange five……

im seriously starting to wonder if perhaps there is a crack somewhere forming in the frame…..it just seems too odd that it only happens when my weight is on the rear end in climbing mode sat down….obviously the pressure is at its most on the rear end….i only weigh 10 stone so its not as if its due to me being on the heavy side….

ill have to give it a good looking over asap and see whether or not i can see anything looking like a crack etc…..

im guessing it would be a warranty job if so anyways, something defo aint right though…….

good idea about taking the caliper out of the mounts and taping it to the frame somehow, that way ill know whether its that 100%….

cant still see the logic of the water thing, as i purposefully put a tiny dribble in the caliper and it didnt drip anywhere other than directly onto the pads/rotor and it was only a teeeeeeeeeeeny tiny bit too….

and also of course the facy my wheels true, rotor is a floating rotor and true, and also brake seems perfectly aligned…..

thought about it being a sticky piston, but it doesnt catch at all anytime im riding, and its silent when braking, so i really even though it appears to be the brake, cant see the logic in it being the brake….

the saddle thing was the first thing i thought last night as it stopped when out of saddle climbing, tried mates seatpost and seat and still the same….

Phantom creaks are ace. Basically mate, what you're going to have to do is what you're already doing. Check and correctly torque…every…last…nut…and…bolt…on…your…bike…one…at…a…time. When the noise stops you'll know that the last thing you torqued was the thing that was squeaking and creaking.

One thought…this QR that's as tight as it'll possibly go…what type is it? Hope? Shimano? Something else?

like R_I_D said: only change one thing at a time or you'll never be sure what it was. The uncertainty will nag at you in the small hours of the night…. DAMHIKIJKOK

shimano xt, it got a little worse for wear in the winter i must admit, and when i removed it to give it a thorough cleaning in and around the cassette it was a bit rusty 🙁 ….it came off easily enough and its been lubed and check since….it still works up real tight, and the wheel feels solid inside……i cant see it being the qr, although i spoke to orange briefly yesterday and was a little surprised to hear him say, check the rear qr as it needs to be really tight….

i dont think its the bearings in the frame, as the noise is defintely emulating a noise from rotation, ie the noise happens every pedal stroke up hill like its a spinning part….

yeah it is nagging me massively, especially when your trying to converse with pals on rides and we do a fair bit of climbing and you can concentrate on the climb let alone mates talking as all im thinking about is this bloody noise 🙁

had a similar issue on a mates turner – could we f### find the squeak – spoke to Turner who suggested greasing rear qr skewer – i thought he was taking the p### but it worked and now ady no longer has to ride alone

righty then, im gonna give the QR a more indepth look, to many people suggesting such and even orange said it should be done really tight so ill give that a go first and foremost…..

what sort of grease should i use? can anyone link me to some?? one that i can use to grease various parts of the bike….

many thanks for your input guys, hopefully will leed me to the culprit :(….

This might sound daft but check your front QR and handlebar/stem bolts too…

take the seatpost out and try riding around like that for a couple of minutes. That's what made me realise that it was the seatpost.

new bars and stem so not that – front wheel is fine defo isnt the front end…….but will check it out guys, good advice all round, thanks for all your input……ill see what happens 🙂 and let you know 🙂 hopefully with a squeeeeeeeaky free bike!

The fact that the bars and stem are new will have no bearing in the fact that the bolts holding them together and to the rest of the bike may not be correctly torqued. So I'd check them if I were you.

As for it definately not being the front end…I once said that about a carbon fibre road bike with a mystery creak. After about a week of stripping every individual component, greasing and re-assembling it was suggested to me that the Mavic QR skewer I was using in my front wheel might well be the culprit… well…suffice to say that after around 8 seconds fiddling with the QR, the bike never creaked again!

I guess the moral of the story is not to rule anything out.

I've actually been thinking about this bike a bit (which is disturbing in itself)…I did have one thought…I've known spokes which are FRACTIONALLY loose to creak when under heavy pedalling loads…

My 5 creaked as well, but not when it was raining or wet. I've just got a new pair of wheels, and took the opportunity to convert the rear to a 10mm bolt through axle.

Just been out on my first proper ride with the new wheels, and have had no creaks at all so I am hoping it is cured.

When it was creaking I was thinking it was either the rear q/r, or the spokes on the wheel. Mine mainly creaked under load as well.

I have this exact problem too – creaks on seated climbs but not when standing. Hardtail so fewer parts that can make noise. Am wondering if it's the saddle or seatpost… V annoying!

Hey dizzy i get exactly the same problem, especially when im in a low gear on roads even, happens on climbs also but when i stand up it goes away ? i still don't know what the prob is but Ive ordered loads new chain rings and new chain and cassette etc, as they are quite old now, so if it still happens after they arrive ill just take it into a shop lol let me know if you get it sorted out

hey guys, bit of an update, i thoroughly greased the rear qr and tightened it up immensely! at the same time i greased the seat post, seat collar and seat rails just incase….and the noise went…..it had been silent for a few rides, but then came back ever so slightly a few weeks back, but added more grease to the post, collar and rails again and it went again…..haha! i dont know if that was the cause, also my front wheel was also slightly out of align in the pads….i really dont know which of these was/is causing it but its defo one of these things….even when it does it now, its only very minor noise not like before where it was constant on every load under each revolution….i really dont know the answer to it though….try everything is all i can suggest and dont rule out anything 🙁

I had a squeak coming from the back of my bike. It ended up being the hanger slightly shifting in the dropout, even though the bolt and QR were tight. Just put a bit of grease on the back of the hanger and on the bolt holding the hanger and it was all sorted. Might be worth a try.

Good luck.

welll after initially thinking my creaking noise came from the drivetrain area…..

its continuously done so under load on most climbs and sometimes on semi flat roads…..

however 2 new things spotted tonight….it only does it when sat down in the seat climbing, and as soon as i stand to climb it suddenly disappears….

I had something similar. Take your bottom bracket out, grease the threads and stick it back in. Also grease the connection between the cranks and axle. Good luck mate.

yep i had an awfull creaking noise on last nites ride (its sooooo annoying) thort it was something on the pedal region when i applied force but my hubby unscrewed the rear quick release and tightended agin -creaking disapeared…lol

My FS was creaking on Sunday evening's ride, I was convinced it was the BB. Monday I thought I'd strip the BB and sort it out, as I took the bike down off its hook I noticed a 30mm crack around one of the pivots. Hopefully a new frame will be with me by the end of the week. 🙄

do all orange 5's creak alot ? hey didzy-we have phantom creaks living in our bikes ? they,ll have to cough up sooner or later these phantoms-its not a free ride ! its sooo annoying tho isnt it…ive slapped abit of the old elbow grease on today…. seems they only creak in dry weather ????? lol wierd

i believe that if the qr has been loose in the past it can move and enlarge the drop out. Even then if you have it tight it will move slightly and creak.