A few days ago after I'd driven ~60 miles I heard an intermittent noise as I was parking. Confirmed the funny noise later in the driveway at home.

My stethoscope fooled me into thinking it was the alternator. Indeed the two week old alternator failed testing at the store so they replaced it. Alas, the noise continues after its install. Could I have gotten another lemon...

The noise starts after 3-5 minutes of running when cooled overnight.

Additional poking/listening with and without the stethoscope hasn't provided me with something to investigate.


thoughts?

 

Check that vac pump! Mine just **** the bed last night on I10.

 

pully or vac pump. I just replaced the squeaky pump but the new one does it too.

 

Take the belt off and see if the noise goes away. If it does spin all the pulley one at a time to see if one feels like gravel in the bearing.

 

Follow Glenn’s direction and pull the belt. It should fairly easy to find the culprit

 

Water pump will do that too.

 

Belt will also cause this noise.

 

Apologies for my delayed response. This seasons cold got me good.

 

That was perfect advise oldbird, my thanks. I've not purposely run an engine without its belt before...

Without belt, the engine ran without making the noise so I proceeded to spin pulley after pulley to see if any felt gravely. While none did, my idler




was amazingly loose. Upon removing it, I discovered why. It expects to spin on something ~1 7/8" but has ~7/8"





Now, I get to figure out what its supposed to spin on.

 

Bearing is GONE. You can buy a bearing and press it in, or just replace the idler.

Amazing it didn't throw the belt.

 

That's pretty bad. You should probably go buy a lottery ticket.

Red

 

Wow, that could have been bad. Glad you took the time to figure it out.

 

Ben is right, that could have been your radiator and maybe a few other things! It always pays to listen to our babies, they can talk. lol

 

Yah, my goal is to look and listen. Doesn't always happen but it did this time.


I took the easy road by replacing the idler. Sounds like what I'm used to hearing.


Thanks for the guidance.