I have a dry bearing noise on the top front of the engine... the dry spinning goes in and out. previous to this i had a high pitched bearing noise from the same area after a hard rain and thought i got dust in the cam bearings. does this sound possible or does anyone have any experience with this? would this noise be more likely my timing belt tensioner?

 

sounds more like one of the timing pulleys. there aren't ball bearings on the cams so it is definitely not that.

any idea when the timing pulleys were last replaced?

 

not sure about the pulleys... the belt was recently replaced, within the past 4000 miles. could it be that the new belt is more firm that it wore out the pulleys? the engine has 229k without a rebuild... not sure on records previous 214k.

 

Same noise turned out to be both timing idler pulley bearings on mine, the water inlet and the tensioner. Not that I didn't initially panic I think it was my cams too, I did but it wasn't. Someone had put a new belt on mine before I bought it without doing the pulleys, could have been done then, I wish at least. New belt won't hurt the pulleys unless they're goin' already.

 

It sounds like belts to me!

 

Another possibility.

 

most likely a result of the new belt being of a different tension?

 

i hear the noise more from behind my timing cover... most likely my timing pulley and idler.. I would suspect, thats why i initially thought it was the cams

 

The tensioner is designed to keep the belt at a consistent tension. A bad tensioner, or improperly installed could put extra stress on the pulleys. What I meant was if they hadn't been inspected thoroughly when the new belt was put on they would be on the way out regardless. As was the case with mine. The water inlet is a job to replace, so I can see not wanting to replace that one. The other is pretty quick.

 

the water pump was recently replaced, does that include the inlet?

 

No, the water pump also has a pulley that the timing belt rides on though, it drives the pump.