iamsynthetic

Last night it stormed like crazy. I went through a puddle that slowed me from 25 to like 5 mph. I assume alot of water went through my veilside kit and into the engine bay. well everything was normal, but when i started it this morning it had a huge vacuum sound (buzz, vacuum, whir, etc.) on top of the regular engine sound. it changes when i shift from P to R to N to D. in R it was the worst. When I rev the engine it gets a bit worse, but nothing drastic. I'm going to try to tighten my serpentine belts (I had a problem with a previous vehicle going through puddles and the solution was this) but I don't know if it could be anything else. I just got home (took my spare car to work) and started it and the same thing. I put about a half a quart of oil in it to fill it back to full on oil, and I don't know if that eased the sound a little or not. my stats are as follows...

92,000 miles
automatic
only engine mod right now is cold air intake (checked to see if water was in the air filter box all ready)
only mechanical problems or preventitive maintenance that i've done so far..
----------replaced the timing belt and serpentine belt about 30,000 miles ago
----------replaced wheel bearings

any ideas or suggestions on things to look at?
thanks
email me at slipittoher@hotmail.com or just reply to this post.

Further Update:

well tightening didn't work. I drove it around the block. When its idleing it makes a hum-vacuum sound, driving makes a similar sound, taking a left hand turn changes the sound to more of a grinding um repetitive sound, and putting my car in reverse makes a huge sound that stays louder. The sound is definately coming from the right side of the engine bay. The area that has my alternator and serpentine belts and pulleys. Could it be a power steering pump? What else is over there in general that could malfunction? Any ideas? Thanks again.

REDZMAN

Could be any of a number of things my man. Sorry I can't think of anything specific, is there anything rubbing on your belts?

iamsynthetic

i know it could be any number of things... thats the problem. today i'm going to climb under it and in it and check my vacuum lines to see if any got knocked off. i didn't see anything rubbing the belts, although a chunk is missing/hanging off one of them, and there is a bit of vibration play in the upper power steering pulley (bigger pulley if I'm mistaken). regardless i'm going to try to do as thorough inspection as i can. I may also do an oil change just in case any water was able to get into the engine (seriously doubt that it could). I'm frustrated on this... but your reply was at least appreciated. I'll reply if I ever figure out what it was... thanks.

dddude55

Umm, What air filter box did you look in if you have a cold air intake? It's definately not good when the alternator gets wet although I doubt that it is making a sound like you are describing. Take out your plugs and see if there is any water in the cylinders?

iamsynthetic

I fixed it. after redzman said something about rubbing I looked around the belts. I found some hard plastic um tube/part I guess that had somehow wedged itself above my lower power steering pulley. it managed to get through the platic protector hole to the side of the pulley and pull that out of place enough to touch the actual pulley wheel, while it was touching the belt's teeth. How it managed to stay in there while I drove it around the block I have no idea. However most of the piece was burnt. smile.gif so I don't think it would have stayed much longer. I just removed the section of the plastic protector that got pulled towards the belt. No more noise! I feel dumb now. I swear every problem I ever encounter I think its something major and forget to check the small things out. Oh and dddude55 I attached a cold air intake to the airbox because five years ago when i got the car thats how I thought they were supposed to go on. Yeah i made it myself too. its funny how much i've learned, and yeah its a bit embarrasing to see like that, but i don't care. This week i'm going to make my ram air hood into a working ram air hood (properly). well thats that.. thanks for the help...