All,

Its been a while since Iv'e posted. I guess Rodeo's are such great vehicles that I have had few problems.

It was cold tonight in CA and I went out to get a pizza and I heard a high pitched whining noise coming from my engine bay. I shifted it into neutral and it did not go away and when i parked I looked in the engine compartment and it is definitely coming from there.

It was dark and I did not have access to any stuff but will use my stethoscope this weekend to search for the exact cause or area.

You all are so smart i thought that one of you might have seen this before,

I of course thought of alternator bearings, belts. etc. Does the cooling fan have its own set of bearings. It really did not sound like any bearings I have heard before which sound like screeching, this was more like a high pitched whine which increased when i opened the throttle.

Thanks in advance for any tips or advice.

your pal

98 Rodeo V6 69,000 miles

Rob

IN my experience a bad fan clutch sounds more like a sort of grinding noise than a whirring. I associate whirring with the power steering pump (check fluid) as the most likely cause...beyond that you'll just have to sniff around. Does yours have a serp belt or v-belts? If you can't pin it down and you have individual v-belts you could pull them one at a time and see if the sound changes.

Or just wait until it warms up and see if the noise is still there. Like Bigswede said it is most likely your power steering pump. But I dont know how cold it gets where you live, but it could just be whining from the cold. When I lived in Chicago area, the winters there are freezing. And I use to come out of school hop in my trooper and the brake lines would be frozen and the steering pump would whine a little like your talking about. Sometime it just takes a while for the fluid to warm up, or maybe your pump is damaged now. Hope that helps