sintax

I went to take a look at a pretty clean 97 truck today. Its only has 70k miles on it and over all condition is great for a 97. After starting the truck it idled well, everything sounded fine, a few light puffs of grey smoke at startup. After maybe 45 sec. - 1 min of running it started to make a pretty loud high pitched groan / whine that went on for close to a minute and may have even changed pitch once or so. It sounded like it was coming from the drivers side, right in front of the rear tire (fuel tank area). It was enough of a noise that my GF (knows nothing about anything automotive, let alone diesel) said "is that supposed to make that noise? After about a minute or two of making that same noise, it was gone. Truck was idleing at a solid 800 rpm.

Is this anything that I should be worried about? I know the 98.5-02 have problems with lift pumps and what not. So thats the first thing that clicked in my mind.

Just trying to avoid a problem child , but its so hard not to take every truck I see home with me.

plow

Only thing there is the fuel tank, crawl under and take a look and let us know sounds strange.

infidel

My bet is that it was low on power steering fluid and the sound only seemed like it was coming from the back.

sintax

Possible. But would you think that the noise would appear and then disappear if that was the case?

I plan on taking the truck for a drive sometime soon. Just hope no one buys it out from under me.

They are asking almost 15k for the truck, but like i said its quite a low mile rig.

It also has guages, (pyro pre turbo, trans temp, and boost) on the A. Is there a way to look for any engine mods without taking anything apart? Higher idle rpms? anything that would be a dead give away? I'd like to try to avoid a truck thats been beaten on, esp since its an automatic.

infidel

Look at the rear of the injection pump at what is called the AFC cover. One of the four screws holding it down is an anti tamper screw. If this has been replaced with a regular bolt or screw you can be assured the engine has been juiced up.

The AFC cover is the roundish object to the upper right of the brass valve, which the truck you are looking at won't have.
Upper left is the air intake to the engine.



I worked on a truck last week that had low PS fluid. The sound was constant till the engine warmed up then came and went. The sound was more audible when you used the brakes.

sintax

Excellent tip Infidel.

I'll be back by there soon I hope.