Luke_in_SD

Ok so out of the blue yesterday morning I turn on my car

1995 SC400 126,000 miles

This weird moaning starts taking place. Its a low moan you can hear inside the cabin and engine bay. You can also feel vibration with it on the shifter and e brake and also on the engine. it goes away if you touch the gas to raise the rpm just past idle. It does it in Park and in gear. I drove around for a few minutes and pulled over to check it again.

I then smell a burning rubber smell in the engine bay. I drove it to work with the AC to keep the idle higher, today I did not drive it. Inside I pulled off the serpentine belt and inspected it and the pulleys. No rubbing, looks good. I took off the spark plug covers to look at th timing belt and ran the car. It looked fine and doesn't seem to be coming from there or at least the top.

Does anybody know whats going on? All the fluids are good, maintenance up kept, no warning lights are on. I wanna know that noise is, and whats that burning rubber smell. Kind of afraid to drive the car.

please help thanks

Luke_in_SD

don't know if this has to do with it, but
the car also has hesitation and is getting bad gas millage.
Also the there is crackling noise coming from the cats after its been on for a while. The same noise you hear after you turn off a car.

Luke_in_SD

anybody?

I need to get it fixed asap

Luke_in_SD

common someone on here has to know whats going on?

SClean4

i've experienced one really bad vibration that shook the whole car one time while it was idling in traffic; idled very low almost like the engine/car was dying. that was before i took it in for maintenance and used to have a lot of other minor vibrations and bucking, but not so much anymore, thankfully.

i don't really know what's going on but could it be clogged cats or something? could be a lot of different things (MAF, etc., etc.) but just wanted to mention my experience with a similar vibration issue I had.

MT Photo

Pull your plugs and check them.

I had a similar problem.

Check your sparkplug wires and coilpacks as well.

It ended up being two of my sparkplug wires were nicked and had to be replaced, and I replaced all the plugs and sparkplugs as well. Bad gas mileage is a sign of ignition problems.

Luke_in_SD

update.

Alternator was going bad. Took away the battery light. Also some dash lights that went out on the cluster came back on. The car for some reason had more power. The moaning and vibration disappeared too.

He said also the trans mount can be replaced by they want $250 for that.
I can do that myself right?

How can I check if the coil packs are failing?

Mattmannz

You said you didn't have any warning lights on then you state that the alternator was faulty and it fixed the charge light and a few others that were on.

Makes it hard for people to help you if you don't tell the full story.

Did it fix the problems rebuilding the alternator?

Doing the trans mount is easy as, prices seem to be around $95 for a mount plus no more than half an hours labour so either do it yourself or go somewhere else as they are ripping you.

Matt.

Luke_in_SD

I apologize for that. The battery light only came on the day I drove it to the shop, cause ever since I had that initial problem, I stopped driving the car. No other warning lights ever came on.

The big engine vibration and moaning haven't came back. There is some slight vibration around felt around 2k rpm felt in park and neutral. They checked all the mounts and found the transmission mount going bad.

My question is do I have to drop the transmission to change the mount? The shop said yes, but I have a feeling you don't need to.

There is still hesitation present, I am going to take the car into a friends shop next week to pre-smog it check if anything else is bad (cats, coil packs, injectors, etc). 15mpg is not cutting it

dwebb99

iTrader: (17)

Check your harmonic balancer. You could possibly have your harmonic balancer beginning to separate. Easy way to check for this is to paint a white straight line across your harmonic balancer (main crank pulley) from the center of the pulley to the edge. Then start and rev car, stop engine and see if your pulley has separated. (Will no longer be a straight line)

dwebb99

iTrader: (17)

That noise could be your power steering. You may want to check your power steering fluid. When was the last time the power steering fluid was replaced? You should do this every several years. That hydraulic fluid can get very dirty and start breaking down over time. This is an often overlooked preventive maintenance procedure and is a very easy DIY.

HellFish

iTrader: (5)

to do the trans mount the only thing you drop is the cross member. just support the trans with a jack. use a piece of wood to spread the load and so you wont mar the pan. good luck with it. the harmonic balancer suggestion is a good one, i want to check mine now too.

Luke_in_SD

thanks for the replys that sounds pretty easy.

what do you guys think of this or should go with a Lexus brand one?

http://www.******************.com/se...=1656&Vh=Lexus

or this one?

http://www.sewellpartsonline.com/***...l=218&year=156