['99 M Roadster] Squeel from driver's front, Part Duex

["Gregory F. March" <march@xxxxxxx>]

Hi folks, sorry for cross posting...

You may recall my email a while ago (I've appeneded it to the end of
this message).

Well, I had it into the dealer and the chief mechanic listened to
it. They replaced the belt tensioner pully, but the sound remained. He
claimed that it could be the sound of air flowing through the intake
and since I had a Conforti CAI, the sound would be much louder.

I made a second appointment to try to diagnose the problem with the
stock airbox on. To my surprise, when I put the stock airbox on, I
could not reproduce the squeel.

Does this make sense to anyone? Believe me, this sound *really* sounds
like metal on metal and I am having a hard time understanding how the
intake can make that noise. Is the stock airbox just masking the
problem? It there something in the intake system that moves that could
make a squeel?

I am totally stumped. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

/greg


On Aug 4, 2002, "Gregory F. March" <march@domain.elided>  wrote:

 |OK, I'm stumped.  I've got a squeel coming from the driver's front
 |side that I can't figure out.  I've replaced pads and rotors, so I'm
 |pretty confident that isn't the problem.  I'm going to bring it in to
 |the dealer, but I'd like to go in armed with knowledge.  Fortunately,
 |the sound is consistently reproducable, and easy to describe, but if
 |the test driver doesn't have patients and follow the instructions
 |exactly, the sound will not occur.
 |
 |Here's how I reproduce it.  In any gear at around 1500rpm at constant
 |acceleration, very gently and slowly accelerate harder and harder (you
 |never need more than 1/4 throttle though) and you will hear a squeel.
 |When you reach the "sweet spot" in terms of acceleration, the squeel
 |is constant.  A little more or a little less throttle and it goes a
 |way.  Using the brakes while the noise is occuring has no effect on
 |the sound.
 |
 |Everything "looks" okay under the car (sway bars are tight, steering
 |linkage has no play, etc).
 |
 |Could this be a wheel bearing?


- --
Gregory F. March    -=-    http://www.gfm.net:81/~march    -=-    AIM:GfmNet

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