Strange Grinding
Thread Starter
Newbie
Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 7
Likes: 0
From: Indianapolis
Strange Grinding
It seems my problems continue to multiply. For everyone’s sake I will try to make this easy on the eyes and brief, but I do have quite a bit of things going on, and will give as much description of them as I can.
The beginning of April I got a new wheel bearing and mew rotors put on. Two days later my alternator goes out (not related I know). It took me 3 days to try to get the bottom bolt out of the alternator. I put the new one in and it started right up, but something wasn’t right. Something didn’t sound right and then it started eating the belt, chunks of it went flying. I drove it like this for about a mile and a half, I really had no other choice.
I will try describing this the best way I can, since I don’t know the name of this part. There is a piece that is kind of L shaped and both ends have what looks like the head of a bolt. The piece is around the left front in the engine compartment, and goes through to the tensioner pulley. Both must be loosened in order to get the belt off. For a long time now when I start my car it squeals. I know it was the belt for the power steering and not the alternator because whenever I replaced it it would stop for a while. However it would always start squealing again. I have replaced it five times so far and it only usually lasts about a month before it starts squealing again. I thought this was happening was because the heads of both ends of this L shaped piece that I don’t have a name for looked crooked, like whoever replaced the belt didn’t get them straight when tightening them back down.
I removed this piece and pushed the front head over where it was supposed to be then put it back in place and through the pulley, tightened it down, and started up successfully without any squeal. However once again it is squealing.
At this point I should say that I replaced a fuse under the hood back in February, when my dome light, radio, clock, power windows and locks stopped working. It was a 10. All I had was 25 so I put that in. When I put the new alternator in there is a nut that goes on the bottom bolt that I could not get back on because it seemed stripped. I still have yet to put that nut on.
A week ago my car wouldn’t start. I pulled the battery thinking that had to be it and it was. It was 640cca and was putting out about 50. I replaced the battery and it started right up.
Since I replaced my alternator at the beginning of April, there has been this grinding sound and it has progressively gotten worse. When I first start it up, or my idle gets low the grinding gets loud. Once I hit the gas I don’t hear it at all. Now my car is acting so sporadic that I don’t know when it’s going to start and when it may stall.
My clock dims sometimes so dark I can’t see it, the headlights get very dim and the wipers if in use get very slow and then all the sudden the clock will fade in to full brightness and everything else is fine. When it dims is also accompanied by the grinding sound getting louder and the idle rougher. This dimming of the clock and the radio actually turning off and back on has been going on for the past 2 weeks while the grinding has been going on for about a month and a half. My A/C is very cold sometimes and other times will blow hot air.
The last thing is that I have an aftermarket alarm that will lock and unlock my doors, and remote starts the car. The power locks work just fine however it’s supposed to "chirp" when I lock the doors signifying that the alarm is active but it doesn’t, and when the doors are locked and the alarm is supposed to be on I can go shake the car and the alarm doesn’t sound. The remote start does work but very recently I have noticed that when I remote start it the car will start then about 20 seconds later shut off, and then it will start on its own without me pressing the button and once again will run for about 20 seconds and shut off. It repeats this once more. Then it stays off. I can hear a clicking when it starts and when it shuts off which I have isolated to a box under the dash that is associated with the alarm. The alarm is a Python 990.
Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated. I know this is a long post and I tried to condense it as much as possible thank you to all who read.
The beginning of April I got a new wheel bearing and mew rotors put on. Two days later my alternator goes out (not related I know). It took me 3 days to try to get the bottom bolt out of the alternator. I put the new one in and it started right up, but something wasn’t right. Something didn’t sound right and then it started eating the belt, chunks of it went flying. I drove it like this for about a mile and a half, I really had no other choice.
I will try describing this the best way I can, since I don’t know the name of this part. There is a piece that is kind of L shaped and both ends have what looks like the head of a bolt. The piece is around the left front in the engine compartment, and goes through to the tensioner pulley. Both must be loosened in order to get the belt off. For a long time now when I start my car it squeals. I know it was the belt for the power steering and not the alternator because whenever I replaced it it would stop for a while. However it would always start squealing again. I have replaced it five times so far and it only usually lasts about a month before it starts squealing again. I thought this was happening was because the heads of both ends of this L shaped piece that I don’t have a name for looked crooked, like whoever replaced the belt didn’t get them straight when tightening them back down.
I removed this piece and pushed the front head over where it was supposed to be then put it back in place and through the pulley, tightened it down, and started up successfully without any squeal. However once again it is squealing.
At this point I should say that I replaced a fuse under the hood back in February, when my dome light, radio, clock, power windows and locks stopped working. It was a 10. All I had was 25 so I put that in. When I put the new alternator in there is a nut that goes on the bottom bolt that I could not get back on because it seemed stripped. I still have yet to put that nut on.
A week ago my car wouldn’t start. I pulled the battery thinking that had to be it and it was. It was 640cca and was putting out about 50. I replaced the battery and it started right up.
Since I replaced my alternator at the beginning of April, there has been this grinding sound and it has progressively gotten worse. When I first start it up, or my idle gets low the grinding gets loud. Once I hit the gas I don’t hear it at all. Now my car is acting so sporadic that I don’t know when it’s going to start and when it may stall.
My clock dims sometimes so dark I can’t see it, the headlights get very dim and the wipers if in use get very slow and then all the sudden the clock will fade in to full brightness and everything else is fine. When it dims is also accompanied by the grinding sound getting louder and the idle rougher. This dimming of the clock and the radio actually turning off and back on has been going on for the past 2 weeks while the grinding has been going on for about a month and a half. My A/C is very cold sometimes and other times will blow hot air.
The last thing is that I have an aftermarket alarm that will lock and unlock my doors, and remote starts the car. The power locks work just fine however it’s supposed to "chirp" when I lock the doors signifying that the alarm is active but it doesn’t, and when the doors are locked and the alarm is supposed to be on I can go shake the car and the alarm doesn’t sound. The remote start does work but very recently I have noticed that when I remote start it the car will start then about 20 seconds later shut off, and then it will start on its own without me pressing the button and once again will run for about 20 seconds and shut off. It repeats this once more. Then it stays off. I can hear a clicking when it starts and when it shuts off which I have isolated to a box under the dash that is associated with the alarm. The alarm is a Python 990.
Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated. I know this is a long post and I tried to condense it as much as possible thank you to all who read.
