I have a 1999 cav with 153,000 miles on it. Recently it sounds as if I have a supercharger installed, but I don’t. What I’m saying is I’ve got this whine that gets louder while revving or accelerating, even while sitting still so not the wheel bearings. It sounds just like a supercharger or exactly like a power steering pump whine. The pump checks out but while listening using a flat tip screwdriver and my ear on it I have noticed that the alternator sounds like the source, but through all my years working on cars, I never had a bad alternator or alt bearing whine. Just vibrate and rattle if it was bad. I have also listened to the valve cover because it was next to the noise. Hard to pinpoint where it is. Can anybody help me out on this one? I don’t want to just start throwing parts in to figure it out.
Double posting is the DEVIL
Didn't mean to double post, just forgot to check the email me replies to this thread box when originally posting.
It could possibly be the harmonic balancer.
one of the bearings is going in the alternator. you may want to either A) have it re-built before it completely seizes or, B) just buy a new one.
I have had issues with harmonic balancer on cars in the past Trevor, but no humming was present, just really bad vibration. Thanks for the imput though, but I am thinking more in the alternator bearing direction as Brad suggested.
It's just that I never had a humming alternator issue before, I guess that's because my cars have always had multiple belts rather than serpentine. Alt would just vibrate when bad. Spent a lot of $$'s on my 1987 350 camaro replacing parts to find a stalling problem and found out it was the in-tank pump, don't want to expiriment again like that again.
Just offering input because I had a harmonic balancer go bad and it squeeled and vibrated like a mofo. Hope you get it all figured out though.
i would take off the serpintine belt and try spinning the alt by hand, and maybe fire up the engine for a few seconds with the belt off.
This weekend I was able to take a look at all the pulleys and nope the alternator pulley is fine, but.... The tensioner pulley assembly bounces like crazy when I raise the engine. The bearings gone on the pulley. Though it's hard to tell if the sound is resonating from that exact direction. I think Sleepy might be right about the tensioner pulley being the noise maker, not sure yet. I believe all I have to do is remove the power steering pump to get to it. Is this correct? Please tell me I don't have to drop the engine to get this thing out!! Thanks for the help.
did you take the belt off and spin it?
Yes I did, sorta. I didn't have much time so I just cranked the tensioner down enough to get the belt off the power steering pump, that allowed me to check the wheel. The wheel was a little wobbly and spun with a little noise. Does the engine have to come down to take off the tensioner, or just the power steering pump needs to come out?
