[Solved] Engine noise - bad water pump

[petervivian]

Hello, everyone. My 05 base has 172k miles right now. The noise comes from the serpentine belt area. Thank you.



Link to this youtube video in 1080p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axPbVoiOQFg

[jayoldschool]

Take the belt off, start engine. See if the noise is gone. Don't run it long, obviously. Then, check each component for noise/roughness (with engine off).

[petervivian]

Good suggestion! Let me check the engine and these pulleys separately.

[rmacnamara]

Good suggestion! Let me check the engine and these pulleys separately.

A tip in checking individual locations for noise is to use a long screwdriver and put it on the component you are trying to listen to and ear on other end. Obviously watch out for hot things and moving parts.

Sounds like a bearing for sure but it's hard to do car diagnosis via video lol.

[Caretaker]

water pump? alternator? That's a lot of miles and years to have those OEM parts in. I've had both of mine replaced in my '09 already.

[joatmon]

I've never had the problem, but a number of people here have had the serpentine belt tensioner go bad, sometimes described the sound as marbles rolling around in a plastic cup. Not sure if the awful noise in the video clip fits that description, but it coiuld.

[ColonelPanic]

The serpentine belt tensioner is always a good place to start on these cars, especially if it has never been replaced. Even if that isn't the culprit, it's not a bad preventative maintenance item IMHO.

I had the "marbles in a cup" rattling sound, but it was very faint and most probably would not have noticed it. It would also make a grinding noise upon acceleration when cold. New OEM tensioner and belt took care of it.

[petervivian]

Picture

Edit: I spent 20 minutes but couldn't compress the picture file to any size less than 150k.

[petervivian]

Thank you guys for the advise. I removed the serpentine belt and started the engine. It ran so quietly and smoothly just like it was manufactured in December 2004. Then I hand-rotated each pulley. They were all good except the water pump. There was also some liquid (not much, but it was a dry sunny day) on the pulley of the water pump. Now I think I just need to replace the water pump.

[petervivian]

Did four cycles of draining the coolant and filling with distilled water in the last couple of days. Replaced the water pump, put on a new serpentine belt, and refilled the Toyota antifreeze concentration. Smooth and quiet now. I will take samples of the coolant mixture in the next days to see if I need to fill any antifreeze or distilled water to achieve a 50/50 mixture.

By the way. The entire work of water pump replacement took about 2 hours. I spent probably one hour on removing the alternator. There is a nut inserted into the bracket of the alternator for the lower 14 mm bolt. It's pulled in too much by the tightened bolt and it locked the alternator to the place. I have to remove all wires on and around the alternator and also the radiator fan to make enough space. So I could pry the nut loose. On YouTube I saw people had similar difficulty and they used C-clamp to retract the nut for easier installation.