Mysterious noises from my Escort

What is an axle stand??

Electric fan yes.

Water pump, maybe ( sadness ) but later date.

Alternator bush unlikely (engine does not need to turn for sound to occur).

Cam belt adjusting wheel bearings? What do you mean? I changed the belts a couple of thousand miles ago...

Manual steering. Does power steering do that?

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Dear Billy H:

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Since you have turned the engine off, and teh noise persists, this is not he cause. No, you do not need to do this.

David A. Smith

Dear Billy H:

So the bearing on the side you didn't replace the bearing on is the one that *could* (not does) get louder when you turn left.

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Is the fan electric? In some cars, this will continue to run for a bit, and you may have moved the fan shroud while you were poking around. No need to check this if the "rhythm" changes with car speed.

In a front wheel drive, disengaging the transmission simply prevents the torque converter rotation from reaching the rear wheels. There are a large number of gears that are still directly connected to the driven wheels, and turn when they do.

OK. They did it in "Hooper" (a really bad film you probably didn't see)... ;>)

Make sure the fender wells are clear around the tires. Plastic bags, cardboard, displaced fender well liner.

David A. Smith

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)" wrote in message news:5F5kf.10763$dv.6601@fed1read02...

Yes.

All this makes me sound *to myself* a total imbecile. I am however receptive to advice from elders and betters (and the judgement of who is *better* is down to me, and I'll always get things wrong on my own... *but sometimes they'll get it right*... life is a pain in the infundibula...).

Yes I listened to advice and changed the side I thought was okay but could've been wrong and left my adjudged side alone. (slap me now before some fool does...).

Never again shall I take paraffin on a river boat trip...

Dear Billy H:

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Don't be hard on yourself. But also don't change one of something that should be done in pairs.

It is not atypical for a driver to assign one meaning to "left" and "right" based on sitting behind the wheel, and another for a mechanic who spends his life 180 degrees around looking under the hood. It may be simply misunderstanding. To quote Billy Joel: communication is the problem, not the answer.

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Sorry, I didn't understand that. Is that a reference to surfboard wax and boat trips?

Let us know how it (the search for the noise) comes out.

David A. Smith

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)" wrote in message news:3P6kf.10773$dv.3338@fed1read02...

I shall let you know.

That was a paraphrase from 'Three men in a boat' (1909) by Jerome K Jerome, a lovely little book!

"We had taken up an oil-stove once, but "never again." It had been like living in an oil-shop that week. It oozed. I never saw such a thing as paraffine oil is to ooze. We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed down to the rudder, impregnating the whole boat and everything in it on its way, and it oozed over the river, and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmosphere. Sometimes a westerly oily wind blew, and at other times an easterly oily wind, and sometimes it blew a northerly oily wind, and maybe a southerly oily wind; but whether it came from the Arctic snows, or was raised in the waste of the desert sands, it came alike to us laden with the fragrance of paraffine oil."

Solid triangular steel support for resting the weight of a car on whe the wheels are off, usually placed under the axle, hence the name. Yo shouldn't keep a car on a hydraulic trolley jack and work under it fo two reasons. Firstly, it could slip off the jack or the jack could mov because it's on wheels (ouch!) or secondly, the hydraulic seals in th cylinder could burst (also ouch!)

If the noise is not engine speed dependent you can rule out all th engine ancillaries such as water pump, alternator, power steering pump air conditioning, timing belt and anything else driven directly by th engine.

Assuming the car isn't an import, the traditional driving side for eac country is the off side and the passenger side is the near side as i near to the kerb that you're supposed to park against

-- DX-SF

----------------------------------------------------------------------- DX-SFX's Profile:

this thread:

A friend of mine once had an escort that made some very mysterious noises...she was the slim, blonde sort of escort though... ;-)

Regards, Tony

yup, I'm talking on that basis, nearside=kerbside=passenger side, offside=middle of road side=driver's side.

:)

No, no no, they're all wrong. It's a little accepted fact that its not technology that makes cars work, its actually Gnomes. Inside the structure of the car are thousands of tiny little gnomes, and what you're hearing is the muted whistling of the gnomes as they work. Now normally these are to be found in the carburettor where their whistling is often mistaken for induction noise, but in winter they migrate south and join the dwarf working parties in the driveshaft and bearing levels.

These consist of the axe levels (often referred to incorrectly as axles), the common property mine access shaft (run by the dwarves) often shortened to prop shaft, and the main circular mining pits, the motherlode (wheel) bearing face. Occasionally access to one of these areas is blocked when the underground joists (UJ's) in the tunnel fail. You can always tell when this has happened because you can hear the dwarf miners tap-tap-tapping away with pickaxes to clear the blockage.

Working in these levels is arduous, so the gnomes and dwarves like to play hard after they have worked hard, and at the end of the shift they want to have a beer or two, relax and let their hair down in one of the many gin joints to be found in these levels. However, being as small as they are they cannot hold their drink very well and often become a bit too boisterous and uncouth. In an attempt to restore the decorum the powers that be decided to ban workmans clothes and insist on formal wear as an entrance policy for everyone wanting to drink and dance,so instead of gin joints these became known as Ball Joints due to the dress policy.

Ball joints are normally quiet, because the now well behaved gnomes and dwarves don't like to mess up their formal wear, but riots have occasionally broken out down there when the drink has run out. That's why it's important to keep these ball joints 'well lubricated' if you want to avoid excessive noise or damage to the 'joint'.

Occasionally they can of course still imbibe too much and will feel slightly drunk the morning after when they return to their work place. Predictably, the result of this is usually a loss of balance, and if too many gnomes are hungover at one time, then this can be clearly felt in the handling of the car. Sometimes they are so drunk they will report for duty on the wrong 'side' of the car before being sent back to the proper station. This often leads to the conclusion that the imbalance is on the wrong side of the car to where it actually is. Of course, when they sober up the imbalance goes away, but will return if they turn up drunk again. This often leads people to believe that there is an 'intermittent fault' somewhere.

Now and again of course, they just have a bad headache and can't keep to the correct working rhythm of the rest of the group. On these occasions you may experience a series of out-of-place tapping sounds. In order to help these gnomes get back on the pace, all the other gnomes and dwarves will then whistle or hum a marching tune for them to follow and allow them to pick up the rhythm, and this is what you are actually hearing.

Peter

So you have to wait until they have all finished work and gone gnome, before the noise will stop!

Lionel

Rear wheel bearing? Noises are notoriously difficult to track down in moving cars!

If I put a fish under the bonnet (or a box of fish) and a goldfish bowl would it cheer them up and make all well again?

Are these gnomes anything like nibblungs?

"Billy H" wrote in message news:438dfcc1$0$18532$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...

Well, I changed the wishbones and fitted a new steering rack and track rod ends.

Didn't make much difference although all the stiffer new parts have made the steering a little heavier.

New tyres and wheel balance made no improvement to the symptoms I was concerned by.

Changed the front nearside bearing, noted it was beginning to flake up a little. This took away a lot of the noise but some remained.

Changed the rear offside bearing, and noted the cup was battered; pitted around almost 50% of it's circumference.

The new wheel bearings have stopped the noise (fitted a full set now) and I'm sure the new steering rack'll give years of good service.

I'd begun to think my drive shafts were bent. Fortunately it seems they are not.

I can hear my engine again, and the stereo! I wasn't too keen on the tunes the bearings were playing.

Thanks all for your inputs!

Billy

Dear Billy H:

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Excellent news. And thanks for the update!

David A. Smith

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)" wrote in message news:ihyDf.24257$jR.6857@fed1read01...

Did what a garage would've charge around 500 quid for with only 200 quid!

I ought to have charged more for my labour! ;)

You might have better luck on "alt.autos.ford". Don't use terms like "nearside" though, as people in North America will not know what you mean.

Steve R.