Need help with a whine sound and alternator (attached battery and charging pics) (1 Viewer)

[zhloea]

Hi, I just pay attention to a whining sound made by my 04 LC100 from yesterday night, and I found this sound behavior as below:
1. this sound will be louder on idling, but will be much quieter when driving forward or back.
2. this sound will be louder and sharper when the headlight turn on
3. this sound will be louder when accelerating.
4. the tone of the sound will be a litter change when turning the wheel but that change is very minor.
5. my idling rpm is 600

In the beginning, I thought it would be a bad/damaged power steering pump because I just vacuumed all the power steering oil and changed my power steering reservoir and hoses a couple of days ago, after the vacuum, parts replacement, and low steering fluid top off, I start the car then I got a loud whine sound, then I turn off the car immediately (about 3-5 sec running totally), after jack it up and end to end turn that loud sound was gone, then I found there always a small whining sound. So I thought maybe that 5 secs damage the power string pump.


But after some research, I am thinking now that my alternator might be going bad based on the behaviors I mentioned upwards (Particularly after saw a guy's video, he changed all power steering pump, belt, pully...then still got the whining sound until swap out the alternator). There are some readings below with my brand new battery.

So what is going wrong? power steering pump? alternator? what should I do next?

Thanks! Happy new year!

fter

 

[abuck99]

The noise is a likely indicator the alternator is about to fail. If your battery light begins to flicker or comes on you’ll know its toast. Ahead of failure, you can test alternator and charging system to see if its over or under charging- see youtube if you dont know how to do that.

My alternator failed pretty quickly (days) after it started making noise.

 

[nissanh]

Remove the drive belt and spin each pully by hand to find what makes the noise.

 

[zhloea]

The noise is a likely indicator the alternator is about to fail. If your battery light begins to flicker or comes on you’ll know its toast. Ahead of failure, you can test alternator and charging system to see if its over or under charging- see youtube if you dont know how to do that.

My alternator failed pretty quickly (days) after it started making noise.

are those battery reading seems normal?

 

[abuck99]

Yes they look like good numbers for the moment. I’d drive it a week or two and see of you get further warning. If you have access to scanguage or bluetooth OBD reader, Id plug in and monitor voltage realtime while driving for the near term.

 

[medtro]

Amazon product ASIN B0002SQYSM

 

[zhloea]

Yes they look like good numbers for the moment. I’d drive it a week or two and see of you get further warning. If you have access to scanguage or bluetooth OBD reader, Id plug in and monitor voltage realtime while driving for the near term.

what I think is if this issue relates to the alternator I will change it anyway because I need to change the radiator hoses soon, so I can change all of them and the pulleys at the same time, because I really don't know how old of this guy and I really want to keep this car as far as I can. does this sounds right or to rush to decide?

 

[flintknapper]

Classic Alternator giving you a warning. But DO remove your serpentine belt and spin each and every pulley and check for anything amiss there


At idle you can introduce a hard load (high beams on your headlights), turn them on and off and if you note an increase in the 'whine' then its a pretty safe bet it's your alternator.

They will go like that for awhile....but failure is imminent.

Here is mine doing exactly that:

 

[zhloea]

what I think is if this issue relate to the alternator I will change it anyway because I need to change the radiator hoses soon, then I can change all of them and the pullys, because I really don't know how old of this guy and I really want to keep this car as far as I can.

Classic Alternator giving you a warning. But DO remove your serpentine belt and spin each and every pulley and check for anything amiss there


At idle you can introduce a hard load (high beams on your headlights), turn them on and off and if you note an increase in the 'whine' then its a pretty safe bet it's your alternator.

They will go like that for awhile....but failure is imminent.

Here is mine doing exactly that:

I did " turn them on and off and if you note an increase in the 'whine' ", and I pretty sure the sounds increase significantly! so looks I'd better change it asap.

So, what should I buy for change? Denso reman? AutoZone reman? Oreilly reman?

 

[zhloea]

Another reason that I bet the alternator going bad is when I replace the power steering hose I found the rear half of the alternator and the cables connect to it are all covered by the leaking power steering fluid....

 

[flintknapper]

Another reason that I bet the alternator going bad is when I replace the power steering hose I found the rear half of the alternator and the cables connect to it are all covered by the leaking power steering fluid....

Yes, an oil soaked Alternator is a common cause of failure. IMO the exalted Toyota Engineers put the alternator in vulnerable spot for a lot of things.

 

[zhloea]

Well, I replaced the alternator, idler pulley, tensioner pulley assembly, higher/lower radiator hose at "single-seat" two weeks ago. The alternator charging is much better than before and the humming sound which will change by headlight switching is gone now. There are some things I can confirm:
1. most difficult part: remove and reinstall the alternator through the tight bottom gap behind the radiator. Pain in the butt work...but do able...
2. need to remove ps pump, alternator, and passenger side/center camp case for replacing the tensioner pulley assembly...not that funny work.
3. some stubby rachet/ wrench set is kind of must-have for this job.
4. the new (re-man) Denso alternator will have no back metal case and there is no place to install that kind of case also.