Rebuilt my door stay with brand new rollers, springs, and arm. And it still LOUDLY creaks the first 12 inches (outter door measurement) of opening the door. After that it is fine to all the way open. Sprayed it with white lithium grease - no change.

Solutions?

I too rebuilt mine. Drivers side is fine, passenger side does exactly what your is doing. Curious too if there is any solution. Rollers seemed to act fine and spring tension seemed similar so i have no idea what is going on.

Rebuilt both of mine and they both have a similar noise issue. Tried different lubricants after taking them apart and cleaning out the first application. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

There is no magic solution. They need to be greased and opened an closed a bunch of times. The noise will go away. Mine did...

New springs, or sandblast them, and the mounting tabs to remove all the corrosion.

Well I found my solution - I switched the new one from the drivers side to passenger and it no longer makes noise. Then I installed the 2nd new one to the drivers side and it creaked the first couple openings but then stopped. Yay!

So try flipping them.

And while we're talking about door stays, if anybody has a source for clevis, nails, or bolts that are slightly larger than the 5.85-5.89mm that goes in the door stay arm...that would be nice to know! I haven't gone hunting yet at the hardware store.

Bump! Any know of good and bigger clevis/pins to use for our door stays?

I have an idea what might be the problem here…
The check strap when new has a straight cut knurl in the edges that creates a little friction against the rollers to give grip. This then rotates the roller for a clean operation as the door is opened and closed.
With age the knurl wears smooth in places and as a result doesn’t grip the roller as well against the spring tension. It just rubs across the roller and slips rather than rotating the rollers. This makes the creak noise you hear. (and also rubs a flat on the old rollers making the whole situation worse)
While in some cases any grease or lubrication will stop the noise for a short time, it will return unless continued to be lubricated.
The long term fix is to buy new check strap arms with new knurls or get a machine shop to cut a knurl on your old arms maybe. It's not a case of just replacing the rollers, you need to understand how the parts work together.

You can get 1/4" cleis pins here, just re-drill holes slightly.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#clevis-pins/=11ypalp