Have a whining noise, not a screeching or a grinding. Pretty dang sure it's my power steering pump but read sometimes it's the fan clutch or water pump. My engine runs at perfect temp no matter what the weather and I don't burn a drop of coolant. When I wiggle the fan blades there is absolutley no play so I doubt it's the water pump. But I also read that with the engine off, the fan should only be able to spin with the feel of a little "friction", it should not spin freely. My question is - how much friction? I can probably get mine to spin about a third of a turn with one tug before it stops on its own. Is that too much friction? Is this a sign the clutch is going bad? When I open the hood with engine running I don't hear the whining noise at all, just on the inside of the car. It seems to telescope into the interior only, the engine bay is pretty quiet. There is 82k on the Disco. All the idler pulleys and serp belt are new. Powers steering works fine BTW, but when I bought the car the guy that did my 90k service said the Prev owner ran ATF as steering fluid. We change it out to proper fluid and added a bottle of Lucas and there are no leaks, but the mechanic said he figures the ATF fried the pump seals and it should be replaced.

 

Your hub will spin with a little drag when cold, when hot, there should be a high degree of resistance when spinning the fan.
Better have someone locate this problem before something fails and you have a bigger bill.

 

With the engine running, carefully take a large screwdriver and place it on each accessory - watch out for the fan and belt. If you still can't find it, pull your belt and spin each pulley by hand. Feel for abnormalities..

 

Then the clutch is probably okay. I checked it today when it was pretty warm and that's when it would only spin a third of a turn.

 

Then it is probably the power steering pump. When I changed the belts earlier I spun all accesories when it was off, by far the highest friction and uneveness was when spinning the PS pump. The other accessories felt okay. My Ps pump did not spin anywhere near as evenly as a new one at the local dealer. Even though it is not leaking I will change it out to see if the noise goes away. For the extra 200 in parts I may as well go ahead and throw in a new water pump while I have it broken down.