FTO AUSTRALIA

Ok, request for advice 2 on not trusting mechanics.

I've got a noise that you can hear when driving that sounds a lot like a bearing noise. It's very hard to pick at idle and can only be heard distinctly when the throttle has been applied.

It's not having an adverse affect on performance and I can't hear it very clearly now the pod is on.

It's been checked my a few mechanics and we are stumped.

The PS and alternator belts and tensioners have been checked a few times but there is no noise there we can see. The Power Steering pump has been checked and nothing was wrong there.

Last mechanic I went to thought it could be timing belt related. He said they've heard this sort of noise a few times with over tensioned timing belts though didn't think it was of much concern as it would not have been a noise he would have picked up in a service. Also cuase it was over 2 years ago I replace my timing belt he did not think it was a danger sign from the car. He left it as thinking it was probably some crack on the timing belt, though visually the timing belt seals are good so I'm unsure about this.

In any car I'm at 80,000 and we left it at if the noise got worse we'd do an early 100,000 service. If not it would be left until then.

Any ideas or opinions?

what sort of noise is it mate?
yes could be timing belt but the tensioner is auto,
could be tappets?
could be bearing in pully etc

very hard to say without hearing, can you isolate area where it comes from roughly?

it's hard to explain, it sort of sounds like something rubbing on something, or like a brush against metal, sort of a bearing type noise. Can't easil locate cause I can't hear it at idle, can only hear it clearly under 3k in a high gear, say at 60 accelerating up a hill in 4th. Then I can hear it very clearly.

Can sort of locate it to left of the engine but I don't really trust my ears on that cause I think that is just normal belt noises that I am hearing when I try to locate it. To test this I've taken the belts off to check that but the noise was still there with both the PS and alternator belts off. (Just drove around the block and still heard it).

It could be tappets though I usually can hear what tappets sound like and I wouldn't have thought they would be directly linked with accelerating. I can only really hear it when accellerating in a high gear at low road speeds. It's been a bugger to identify even with mechanics hearing it. Might be another one for the mate I trust.

hmm could still be tappets as they will tick when under higher load almost ast though engine being laboured

but the rubbing sound leeds me to believe most likely bearing maybe idler or even belt rubbing on covers?

definatley isn't the PS or alternator belt rubbing on anything. Went to great lengths to check that as that was what I first thought the noise was related to.

You might be right with it being a tensioner though, to give you some back history of something that may not be related......

In the middle of all my belt issues (the PS belt was moving sideways and stripping) a dodgy bush mechanic mate of my dads took a look at it and decided the crank pulley was missing a spacer and the PS tensioner wasn't lining up with it properly. To correct this he put a shim under the tensioner (a 9though shim under the bottom of it). The noise developed a few days after this was fitted, I hated the fact he put it there in the first place but was going down to J& R's the following week so left it. Rik thought the noise was the shim rubbing on the bearing of the tensioner and thought he had gotten rid of it by removing the shim and fitting a older crank pulley that lined up better with all the other pulleys. However the noise is still there. This lead me to believe the PS tensioner pulley's bearing had been worn by the shim but when I've pulled it off to check that I can't find anything wrong with it and it is not making any noise. I don't even know if the 2 are related.

On the tappets front if it's gotten to the point of a grinding noise under acceleration would this point to a worn rubber bit (can vaguely remember Ben talking about something like this) being gone? I guess the only way I am going to check that is adjust the tappets right? How do you tell if a tappet needs replacing on a mivec when your adjusting them?