nile13

Dave, I would not call the sound faint, it's pretty pronounced. My sainted former GF commented on the noise, and she never really cared for well being of the car.

the bearing you have, I assume, is the fan bearing? Since the fan was changed three years ago, I think it should be OK and my real issue is the alternator. As Macca suggested and Garth described above, I'll probably try to disconnect the alternator belt next to check for noise. If there's no noise without belt, it must be the alternator bearings making noise.

nile13

Well, it looks like my alternator bit the dust today.

Coming home from a short errand the speakers started to cut out. Then radio turned off. Then lights come on for a bunch of things as I was getting to my parking lot. i turned off the car and it would not restart due to lack of juice in the battery. Two hours later it would start but the lights soon came on. ABS and a few others.

There's been a lot of noise over the past few weeks from the alternator vicinity. It goes away at higher engine RPM. Which kind of tells me that it's a bad alternator bearing. I'll check the alternator tomorrow with a digital meter at the battery and see what comes up (it's dark and cold now). Any other thoughts or ideas?

Alternator... should I get one from Sunset? Or should I get Autozone rebuilt that I can have in a couple of days? Any other thoughts? Any tricks to replacing alternator in the freezing cold outside?

Dudley

Hey Mike,

Blaine's alternator in his 993 went bad and we replaced it with a rebuilt Bosch from Autozone.

It has been in service the last 4 years. YMMV

Dudley

Recharge your battery. Drive straight to Shrewsbury. We can do it in my garage.

nile13

Dave, I might just do that!

I have my autocross appliance sitting in Framingham. If I go get it Monday and have it inspected at least I can drive around and pick up the alternator and take battery to be recharged. Should I just go with Autozone one or get Bosch remanufactured?

I'll buzz you later today.

Thanks!!

Dudley

Mike,

The Autozone alternator was a reconditioned Bosch.
Got to AZ and take a look to be sure.

nile13

Dave, left you a message.

AZ doesn't have any alternators in stock. Have to order and wait for 2-3 days I think they are all Bosch, it's just they are remanufactured by different companies out there. Curious how long it generally take to replace an alternator in a garage. I'm reading some pretty scary stuff about beating the fan off the alternator, etc?

1997hmc993

I had a very loud whistling noise from the engine bay intermittently, especially at highway speed.
It did not happen at idle.
Eventually, the noise started to happen even at idle briefly but randomly.
Once I recognized the noise, it was there faintly even at idle.
After reading many posts about the whistling noise from the 993 engine bay, using a long oil funnel, I narrowed down the source of the noise between the distributors and fan blades.
It was the belt sensor wheel.
I tried to remove the sensor to grease the bearing but I could not figure out the size of the tool I needed.
So I smeared some brake grease on the "bearing" of the belt sensor wheel and sprayed the lithium garage door spray on the other side where I could not smear the grease.
The noise continued but less often and went away after about 5 miles.
What a relief to know that it was a minor issue!
Thank you for all the postings of anything and everything about 993!

Manual991

I just changed mine a couple of months ago. It was not a good experience. I had to buy a short allen socket to get to the bolt. Then when I was installing, the bold fell into the space behind the engine bracket and I couldn't find that Fng thing. Took me days but finally found it.

71-3.0-911

Lol. Been there. Magnetic wand is your friend.

Wish Clewitt wasn't sold out. That's on my list this year.

Foxman

I really hate fan belt sensors. I run with RS fan belt in my 993, and a Clewett in my 964. Not for everyone, but I rarely drive below 2,500 RPM.

Two essentials for changing the fan belt sensor, a towel and a rubber band. Check out my Fan Belt Install Thread.