It's loud:


Waterpump?

Please help

 

Spike, since you are over near the water pump, I am venturing to guess that you either have a water pump that is starting to go or the idler pulley for the water pump is starting to freeze up and it is going to eat itself here in the near future. You can try squirting some WD-40 on the idler pulley to see if that makes it quiet down (make sure to get the WD-40 into the bearing). If things quiet down when you do that, then that pretty much confirms the idler pulley bearing is toast. If applying some WD-40 doesn't change the noise any, then I would venture to guess that your water pump is going to fail here in the near future. Unfortunately, you can't use the WD-40 on the water pump as the bearing is lubricated from the passing coolant and there is a seal between the metal pulley wheel and the bearing itself.

 

I had a similar noise from my VDP. I changed out the belt tensioner, but that didn't solve the issue. It turned out to be the alternator bearings. I removed the alternator and replaced it. That fixed the problem. I would suggest doing the easy stuff first like the belt tensioner pulley, followed by a alternator r&r before I go digging into the water pump. Good luck.

 

X2 what Thermo said.

I'd put a wrench on the tensioner, lift up on it, pull the belt off and spin the water pump pulley and tensioner pulley, the one that is whirring/growling is the culprit.

Both are very simple to change out.

 

Chris, thanks. Did your water pump make an extremely loud noise as well? This is so extremely loud that I can hear it inside the cabin.

 

Spike, when my water pump went, it simply starting leaking excessively out the bearing seal. It didn't make any abnormal noises. This may be one of those things that maybe doing a simple wiggle test of each pulley will tell you if you have a problem or not. Hard to say. It can be something as simple as a bearing has some rust on it to pretty much all the bearings are gone inside the bearing assembly.

 

Thanks Chris.

The noise almost seems to be coming from the starter solenoid, since it seems to get louder in that particular area, but as the sound seems to go up and down as I accelerate, I can't imagine its the starter solenoid, and also in my experience, when the starter solenoid hangs up, it does not shut down after you turn of the car, it just keeps on going.


Anyway, this morning I decided to take of the water pump belt to see the pulleys by hand and the tensioner did seem to be making some noise....anyway, I moved them all back and forth by hand and refitted the belt, and now the noise is completely gone. I am still not convinced it's not the starter solenoid, but common sense dictates its the pulley or water pump since that's what I immediately touched before the noise stopped. Weird thing is I had sprayed some WD40 in the area of the pulleys when this all started.

Any advise on replacing the water pump and pulley? Thoughts?

Thanks a lot!!

 

Mechanic's Stethoscope

 

Spike, replacing the water pump and belt tensioner in this car is probably one of the easiest cars to do this job in. Pull the battery and go for it. To do both, you are looking at about an hour of time plus any time for draining coolant. This is really a simple job. Your biggest problem will be not over torquing the bolts. But, you will have to hit them pretty hard to do anything negative. So, not a big issue to worry about.

 

Thanks Chris. I agree it looks very easy to change. The weird thing is that in order to test what the noise was, I took the water pump belt of and started the car, and the noise persisted for like 5 seconds without the belt before totally dying down ,which is what has me doubting the water pump or pulley.

 

The noise has been gone for 7 days. Today it came back at start up and then quickly disappeared after I shut the engine of and turned it back on.

Could this be a flex plate?

 

I use stethoscope in 2 modes:
with stick
w/o stick, it looks kind of like medical stethoscope and I just move it around w/o touching anything.
Did you use stethoscope? Did you call local autoparts store to ask if they have them in stock?

 

Thanks for the reply.

I have ordered a stethoscope already.

With the noise on the video, and the fact that the noise will go away by simply restarting the car, does it sound like a flex plate?

Thanks

 

Probably every car which I repair has at least one bad pulley. I replaced upper driving belt pulley in my Jag, it was pretty expensive, $19. They didn't have listing for Jaguar but I checked 02 Ford Taurus Duratec 3.0
I buy AC compressor bearings for about $15

 

Thanks for the reply. I got the stethoscope today.

There is definitely some noise coming from the water pump housing, but I can't really tell if its the culprit.

Can anyone who knows about flex plates tell me if a flex plate noise can come and go?