PLEASE HELP Celica whining noise. Out of ideas

[jim5589]

Please can someone help. i have tried everything to stop this noise and i have run out of ideas. someone must have had the same issue so i am pleading with you to read this and help if you can. thank you.

I bought a 2004 celica vvti 140 last year (My second one of these) and when i bought it i did notice there was a whine coming from the engine bay but it sounded to me like the barings in the alternatior so i wasnt to bothered. the noise is a whine which is at its loudest around 2-3k revs. it doesnt get better or worse when the car is warm or cold, its always the same.

My girlfiend had my old car so i swapped over the alternators to see if that was it and it made no difference. I then inspected further and it sounded like the noise was more from the back of the engine so i bought a reconditioned PAS and swapped that with new fluid etc. that also made no difference. so now i have also replaced the belt, tensioner, water pump with new and swapped the aircon pump from my GF's car. still no difference. If you run the car with the belt off there is no noise!

So my question now is. what else can it be. could the PAS pump i bought also be bad. could it be the crankshaft pully itself making the noise when under load from the belt or is there something else connected to one of the components on the belt that could make this sound when the car is running?



i am at a loss now. any help or ideas would be appreciated



Thanks

[jim5589]

Thanks for the info. that is what i thought it has to be one of the components on the belt. but the noise is not like a slipping belt though. what i would compare it to is the whine you get from a washing machine motor when its wearing out. which is why i originally thought it was the alternator as that's basically a backwards electric motor. it cant be the tensioner or water pump as they are now new. the alternator and aircon pump are from my GF's car so they are known working. so i guess the only unknown is the PAS as i replaced that with a used one that i guess could also be warn out. but before i went and replaced that again i was thinking could there be something else in the steering rack that could make the noise when the oil is pumped round with the pump? i guess i could try and find a shorter belt so i could only run the PAS from the crank on its own to confirm im looking in the right area. would have to be a very short belt though.

[jim5589]

Thanks for the suggestion. I am going to have a go on the weekend. I have also bought a Mechanics Stethoscope to try and see if that helps pinpoint it . will update later

[jim5589]

It was definitely the power steering pump I concluded. So maybe the one a replaced it with also was noisy as it was a reconditioned unit. I found out what it was by using a mechanic's stethoscope which was really handy to have. I gave up in the end and sold the car

[jim5589]

I didn't change it again as I had got fed up with the whole thing at that point and just put up with it. Using the stethoscope it was clear to me it was the steering pump causing the noise. So the solution would have been swap it for another used one which could also be noisy and so waste my time again or buy a new one which was hundreds of pounds which I didn't want to do.