Has anyone run into this particular noise? Seems to be worse the colder it gets. Today it's 27*F

There's no slippage or squealing from the belts that I can tell, and they are all Jaguar OE belts, only about 2 years old. That would equal about 10K miles on them, if that. Just this constant noise.

 

Yup, could be a belt alright.

Changed belts back in September. Every winter before this one I'd get noise when the cold weather came along. Noise stuck around till car warmed up. Started thinking it was the harmonic balancer. Nope. Belt. Now it's all quiet on the western front ...(so far so good anyway!)

Larry

 

It could be your harmonic balancer delaminating. To find out use white (or bright colored) paint and make a stripe across the crank pulleys. If after letting the car run for a while or going for a drive, the marks are no longer lined up, then you need to have your harmonic balancer rebuilt. If everything stays lined up, double check your belts, and make sure your idler pulley is good, a failing bearing in the pulley can cause a squeal as well.

 

I haven't tried this but I heard somewhere that giving the harmonic balancer a really good drink of Krazy Glue can fix the delamination ...worth a try?

Krazy Glue is only a buck a bottle at the dollar store after all ...

Larry

 

 

Hi Nick,

If your harmonic damper passes the test, buy an inexpensive mechanic's stethoscope from your favorite auto parts store and carefully probe the areas around all the belt-driven components like the alternator, water pump, A/C compressor, air pump, etc. Take care not to touch any pulleys or belts in the process, but this may help you identify a failing and chirping bearing on one of the components.

The typical failure mode of the harmonic balancer is to squeal loudly at startup and for up to a minute after, but to eventually quiet down as the rubber heats up, then only squealing again under heavy acceleration. A chirp or squeal that continues beyond the first minute or two after startup is more likely a belt or bearing. On engines with belt tensioner or idler pulleys, those are prime suspects, but of course, the AJ6 has neither.

Cheers,

Don

 

 

Just remove AC belt, see if that gets rid of the noise, if it doesn't remove the other belt and check again, it will narrow things up. Sounds like my ac clutch bearing on my x300, easy to swap, although my water pump on my old XJ40 used to make a similar noise, although that usually cleared up within 5 minutes of driving.
AC clutch bearing is still available from Jaguar too.