This morning I started Rover and heard a loud irregular clocking noise coming from the front of the engine. To me the sounded like a few pebbles in a tin can being shaken. After a few seconds it stopped, only to resume again the next time I started the engine. I recorded the sound but I can't seem to upload it here.


Probably a water pump leak.

After poking around I see evidence of what I assume is a water pump leak.See photo. Any thoughts on what this noise might be? In my imagining there is some foreign material in the cooling system that settles in the impeller cavity and is then pushed out - but only to a certain point - when the engine is started, and then when the engine stops it falls back down into the impeller. Zero evidence of this of course.

Obviously I'm not using the vehicle until this is solved, and I've ordered a new Airtex water pump and fan clutch. But does anyone have any thoughts about what this noise might be? If there *is* some foreign material in the cooling system, just replacing the water pump won't help.

Thanks.

 

Looks like it's the pump itself. There is a little weep hole on the pump that gives a visual indicator when the pump bearings are going out. That gravely sound also matches up with bearing failure.

I've say new pump will set you back in the road just fine.

 

Thanks, Alex. It just seemed to me that if it was the bearings it wouldn't quiet down after a few seconds but keep going instead.

 

Another thought here, is your truck equipped with SAI? The SAI pump also only runs the first few seconds during cold start. Could be an unrelated issue to the water pump. I can't think of anything else intermittent. Not likely anything in the cooling system unless the impeller actually came off the pump (very rare).

If there is something settling in the pump, you'll find it when you pull the pump off. If the pump doesn't solve your rattling, you can unplug your SAI pump and see if it still rattles upon start up.

That's the only thing I can think that runs only for a few seconds upon start up, but someone else might chime in with other options.

 

The SAI pump normally runs for about two minutes, not just a few seconds.

 

Ticking could be leaky lifters which need to pressurized upon startup.

 

Good thought, but no SAI.

 

That's hard to imagine, the sound is just all over the place rhythmically.

 

Yeah, lifters sounds more like a woodpecker and then quickly disappears. Of course, we're all only imagining hearing what you're talking about

 

When I was a service writer in a repair shop, I used to tell my customers I'd give them a 10% discount on their final repair bill if I could guess correctly what was wrong with their vehicle from their description or mimicry of the noise it was making. It was a fun lil game, and had quite a few funny noises made by customers to laugh with