the whine has returned! and better yet i think i have bigger problems.

the mysterious whine is back, yet changing the PS fluid cleared it up for a few days. The whine varies with rpm's and it still present after the truck has fully warmed up. i can hear it rather well in the cab, but barely at all under the hood.

last night from a cold start i hear "marbles" in my tranny when i put it into drive. I'm guessing this is heat shields. but it goes away in neutral and returns in reverse. The fluid level in the tranny is fine, and the fluid looks and smells good.

could these tow be related somehow, or are they just two dumb things happening at once?

 

Would you say the sound is mechanical or electrical. DO you have an after market stereo and amp? Do you have electric fans or the stock fan?

 

the marble sound you hear is heat shields under truck..u can pry on them or get screw like clamp and tighten down that is what we do when i work at ford

 

He's right about the Heat shields - Ford has a TSB about that one . Heres a pic from the there TSB -



The Whine - I would pull the belt and start to see if that eliminated it.. Just to make sure it is the pump..I know one thing about Ford PS pumps - You don't want to get any air in them , it can be a PITA bleeding them out and you can ruin them pretty easy.. Been there done that on a Windstar once ..

 

jbrew would a ps pump only whine when the RPM are moving? Wouldn't you also able to hear it with the engine is idleing? Ben

 

I was told that the whining noise can also be the cam chain tensioner on the front of engine.

 

Shoot , that could happen at idle , thru the RPM's or at a certain RPM. In most cases I've seen you can here it at idle as well. My F150 use to whine a little when it was really cold out 3 or 4 years ago. I replaced the fluid with that Amsoil stuff and it hasn't whined since..

 

Our Windstar used to whine... for a couple months, until I swapped out the PS fluid. Quieted things down for about a year, then it came back... flushed it before we got rid of it, and stopped.

I feel bad for the person who will get that van next if they aren't mechanically inclined.

 

Really , I didn't know that. The IAC's can make noises when cold - sounds like a blower sometimes

 

I went thru the same thing on a 98 Windstar. Damn thing always made noises . I got it to quiet down once for awhile. Then I ended up having to to remove the pump to get at something a year or so later and it was never right after that . I've heard they had rack and pinion problems later down the road - but yea, those Windstars are fun aren't they ? I put a motor in one too. Had to lift the body off the chassi , that was fun..

 

I hate front wheel drives... I hate how they manage to squeeze everything in there. What I hate the most is changing out the plugs. I changed out our plugs on our '03, and I had to take 1/2 the engine apart to get the to back side... end even then, the plug wires were jammed up against the firewall. Changing the serpentine belt on it wasn't a fun job either... absolutely no room. I don't have any clue how they managed to stuff the 4.2l v6 in the '06 Freestars... The 3.8l v6 had no room as it was. Makes me kinda glad my parents got rid of it. I used to hear, "Hey Chuck, the van is doing fill in the blank, can you fix it for us?"

Now they got the Compass, and now it's making a slight thumping noise at only 10k. I looked at the CV joints, looked fine, I can't assume that it is the bearings... it leaves me with the disc brakes. I see scoring in them from the sand, so I told them to wash the brakes and wheels... and drive it around some and lay on the brakes a few times. If not, then it must have warped rotor... but you can feel it when you are driving, even without the brakes. Gosh... all these problems lately. At least the F150 has really given me any mechanical problems that needed to be fixed, I can't say my pinging issue was with the truck... it was totally me and where I was getting gas... so my truck was just alerting me that it did not like the gas. Ever since I switched from getting city gas to getting country gas, the truck has been running great.

But getting back to noises and such, I had a squeeling noise on my Dakota and it was coming from the serpentine belt... I swapped it out in like 10 minutes. It took me longer in the parts store to get it, than it took me to put it on the engine. However, the Windstar, it took me damn near 4 hours... if not more, and TONS of swearing... but the Compass isn't any easier... at least it is an i4 so the plug swaps should be really simple and the fact that it is 4 wheel disc, it should be easy to do brake jobs on.

I dunno... makes me wonder how they heck they build these vehicles...

 

well the rattle turned out to be an exhaust clamp no biggie. i kinda figured heat shields like i said, but got lucky and it was just a clamp

the whine is still there, though go figure it did not happen at the dealer. but ill be damned if it didnt start up at the first red light after i leave the dealer.

everything ive done to the truck so far:
modded airbox with K & N
replaced plugs, wires, fuel filter and IAC
dealer has replaced head gaskets(and all the other gaskets from the top down) and pressure tested heads, all ok there.
dealer has replaced EGR tubes and sensor near the DPFE (the round one in front of the dpfe)
i have replaced the DPFE with a motorcraft one.
replaced all PS fluid with new stuff.
lucas in tranny
seafoamed the engine (i know what im doing with sea foam)
good year gatorback belt
valvoline full synthetic engine oil

comming soon:
Exhaust
accel coil packs
new brakes and rotors all around with new inner and outer bearings(will be done within next 6 mos)
shocks (rancho rs 9000) within a year.
new upper and lower ball joints (not remotely needed but i want ones
with zirk fittings in them)
redline fluid in front and rear end, piossibly the tranny as well.


how safe is it to remove the drive belt and run the truck? im assuming that is what you mean by take off the belt to be sure its the PS pump. BTW when i changed the PS fluid i never truly bled the system. I used a cattle syringe(no needle) and a foot or so of plastic tubing. then sucked out the resivior refilled with new and started the truck, turned the wheel a few times with the cap off to circulate some fluid and work out some bubbles if any existed. kept doing that till the fluid became clear. im leaving as is for about a week and doing it again with another quart or two of PS fluid so i can be sure i got it all out. may add another bottle of lucas PS treatment when im done, that lessened the whine quite a bit when i did it before.


my other thought about the whine is, could it be an overworked oil pump? im guessing the dealer used the cheapest available oil when they did the head gaskets. its been a week since they did all that so im gonna go back to synthetic in a couple days. the whine was never around when i was running synthetic.

 

You should have immediatly turned around and went back to the service center. They would have had a tech go with you for 5 minutes to hear the noise. As if it was a good service center, they would have be courteous enough to do that for you.

 

Mannn , that's allot to have all balled up inside , like a knot - The 98 Windstar Serp belt was quite a bit easier - 10 minute job . That was the 3.8L ..
Working on my 98 F150 was a pleasure compared to some of those front wheel drives. Check this out , that 98 Winstar was owned by a woman - friend of the family. She blew the motor @ 60,000 miles. She didn't once change the oil - she said there was a few boyfriends that put oil in it for her , but she never had it changed
You guessed it - The pickup screen was totally plugged - I still have the tube and screen in the barn , I use it for show and tell

 

Pheonixx Don't remove the belt unless your problem is at idle. If it's not a constant problem instead of a come and go one , that won't help. I must have misunderstood you..

Yea , It doesn't sound like a PS problem . Usually you can tell if it's PS whine, it's kind of distinctive - A one of kind whine.. ( :