I recently took off the trim piece from the rear wall of my 85 standard cab. But now, whenever I drive I hear this extremely annoying crackling/crunching noise from the rear wall of my cab. Maybe the trim piece had some sound-deadening function? Has anyone else had this problem before? A friend said it might be rust in between the two pieces of metal back there, but if that’s the case, I don’t see how I can fix the problem. Please help, this noise makes me want to end myself.

 

Here's a video of the noise:

 

First, don't say you want to end yourself, even as a joke. Second, calm down, it's only a small noise from what I can tell of your very short video clip. Third, why did you take the panel off? Yes it does have sound deadening properties so maybe you should re-install it. If for some reason you aren't going to put the panel back, get a small piece of Dyna-Mat and adhere it to the area making the noise. That might likely work.

 

I was thinking the same thing for a while, so I started looking into some sound deadening materials, but over the past few days, I've discovered that the noise is actually coming from the metal pole attached to the rear wall of the cabin. I think this is because the old trim piece would wedge it super tightly into the bracket that holds it in place. After removing the trim piece, I think it became a little looser, which causes the noise. So I took off the trim piece because I was putting a sub behind the passenger seat and was worried about possibly cracking it. In regards to the video, the file size was limited to 5 MB, so I was only able to attach a very short clip. And although I agree it does sound very quiet in the video, it's almost louder than my music when I drive the truck. I think I'm just going to put a cloth in between the pole and the bracket, which should help. I appreciate the input though!