Engine noise: any ideas?

Brahms

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Jun 18, 2025
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Location
Virginia Beach
So I pulled the belt and noise gone. Picked up a power steering pump, replaced it and noise still there. I did notice when you shut off the vehicle, there is the same noise coming from the fan as it stops just slower and quieter. So I think the noise is either the water pump shaft or the fan clutch. No overheating issues, but they are both probably original. Probably more likely it’s the pump, anybody have any thoughts? Thanks
 
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Put the belt on and get a hose and spray down the water pump and fan clutch and see if they make noise.

-Mac
 
With the belt off, rotate the idler pulleys, alt, water pump, AC, etc by hand to check for noise and roughness.

You can check the fan clutch with the belt on to hold the water pump stationary.
 
With the belt off, rotate the idler pulleys, alt, water pump, AC, etc by hand to check for noise and roughness.

You can check the fan clutch with the belt on to hold the water pump stationary.
Thanks, I’ll try this tomorrow.
 
My bet is the fan clutch itself, you can test this by un-bolting the fan from the water pump, and running the engine. I don't like how slow that fan spins up and how little air it moves for the RPM.

Seeing you are in Vriginia, I would replace it (assuming its the culprit) with a standard duty Haynes fan clutch, or if you want to tinker, I have been loving the SPAL Camaro fan conversion.
 
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So I replaced the water pump and the fan clutch and the noise has disappeared. The new fan clutch sounds like a jet taking off, but that’s better than the previous noise. It also is running slightly cooler as a result. Thanks to all for the info. 👍🏻