Help me identify this sound.

[coyotes]

click

Just seems to have started a day or two ago. I don't hear it when the car first starts or after I've driven it a short distance. Once the car is warmed up and I have driven it 10 miles or more it makes this sound. I can only hear it at idle. Pretty positive it's coming from under the timing cover. Timing belt and pulleys, etc were all changed about 2000 miles ago, using Gates. I did not replace the water pump at that time, service records that came with the car indicate it is less than 30,000 miles old.

I have been driving it about 32 miles a day, but going to park it in the meantime and use my truck. Thanks for the help, if the video doesn't work I can put it up somewhere else.

 

[prove_it]

Your talking about the humming noise right? I hear several noises, but if your referring to the humming noise, it sounds like the timing cover was overtightened on and is now rubbing against the pulleys. Also your harmonic balancer might be failing which will allow the outer part of the pulley to rub on the outer part of the timing cover. If there are grooves on the cover near the pulley, get a new pulley asap.

Also try taking the top cover off, if the noise goes away it's from 20 yr old plastics getting old and warped. You'll need new covers.

 

[coyotes]

Yes the hum, it only happens sometimes which makes me question its origins. I am gonna do some troubleshooting on it later this week.

The sound seems to be coming from the upper part of the engine on the timing side, not down lower.

 

[mitsuturbo]

Peel the P/N sticker off your radiator hose. It's chuttering up your engine bay. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[prove_it]

Take the upper cover off. I bent that's pushing the lower cover into the gears. You'll want to carefully inspect the belt anyway, any marks from touching means new belt.

 

[coyotes]

I wonder why it would do that, I haven't taken it off or changed anything in the engine bay.

 

[prove_it]

Could have warped from heat. It's the first and easiest check to make. Start there. Remove cover, see if noise is still there. Report back with findings.

 

[manikbastrd]

gl

 

[coyotes]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I am gonna work on it thursday or friday, but may have to wait past that since it is going to be raining for the forseeable future.

Thinking back on the sound and the symptom, I am leaning towards the cover rubbing over anything else. Sounds like an easier fix, although finding new timing covers are not cheap either.

 

[coyotes]

Alright I popped the timing cover off real quick even though it's raining. Condition of the belt seems fine, I didn't notice anything obvious where things could be rubbing, except it seems there is a piece of rubber sitting down atop the engine mount? I can't tell what it is, and couldn't get it out with needlenose. Also I noticed the timing cover next to the coil is missing a bolt, perhaps this is making things rub. I am gonna do some more troubleshooting later this week. I took a photo the best i could of the rubber piece, maybe some of you can chime in on what it could be. Seems like timing cover gasket? I can move it around with a screwdriver.




it's the diagonal aligned piece directly beneath the cam gear. I probably sound like a total noob to you guys but I'm glad you're around to deal with all my dumb questions and troubleshooting and make sure things are done right.

 

[ercp98]

that could be the square rubber gasket around the timing cover.
they get really hard and break apart.

 

[coyotes]

what's that gasket called, I can't seem to find it?

 

[prove_it]

It's a rubber seal for the timing cover. You can't just pull it out with pliers because it goes around the engine mount bracket in a full circle. You need to take the mount off, and top bolts for the cover off and try to put it back on without taking the lower cover completely off. Might work, if not you will need to take the whole cover off to put it back on. Unless it's old and brittle you shouldn't need a new one right now. If you do, I'm not sure if you can buy that separate from the lower timing cover. I doubt it would fall into the belt if it's not brittle, but it could happen and that's not good.

 

[coyotes]

Yeah dude I am going to take it all apart and check things out. Is it possible to verify correct tq settings on the pulleys, etc when the belt is tensioned on them? I want to just check everything out and make sure things are good. But the belt will not come off if necessary, but if I can I would like to check the pulleys for proper tension and all other things while I'm in there. I'm pretty sure something is rubbing somewhere, and not a pulley going bad, due to only hearing the noise sometimes, I just need to find where it is rubbing and fix from there.

 

[EfiniX]

I had a hum as well. So I upgraded the stereo to make it louder and now I don't hear it anymore!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[prove_it]

Most likely the noise is from the cover being loose and allowing it to move around. With that seal coming out and a missing bolt on the cover I'd suspect that.

 

[gvr4ever]

I've never heard that noise before, but it wouldn't hurt to tear in to it a little. It does sound like it's coming from the timing belt side, but all the belts are on that side. You could try and isolate it with a tube on the ear trick. Could be the timing belt, could be any of the other belts.

It wouldn't too much time to start a timing belt job, remove the engine mount, water pump pulley, belts, lower timing belt cover. Check the gap on the tensioner, check the dampener pulley for dry rot.