Sound waves are vibrations...so either way, both.

 

I know its cld there but the battery sounded like it was turning the engine awful slow to crank it up. Do you think you got some bad gas? I got some last week it took a tank of fuel to clear it out. My fuel in my filter was nasty, I changed it in the process. As cold as it is there bad gas could make it moe noticeable, when i was figuring mine out it was the worst on cold mornings and almost unnoticeable when warm in the afternoon.
I would go to a thinner oil also as cold as it gets.
Whts wrong with synthetic?

 

good point

It sounded sluggish because it was sitting in -20F for a few hours the night before, not plugged in and I dont have a battery blanket/heater.
Are you suggesting the gas has something to do with it? I get gas from three different stations, two different companies. I cant recall which because I never really pay attention. It has been doing that noise for about a month, and in that time I've filled up at least 4 different times, alternating the stations. I only do that because one is cheaper but a little more out of my way, one is right by the university and on the way to my sisters house, and the other one is down town where I seem to end up a lot lately
As far as synthetic, I have nothing against it, I'd just rather use dead dinos. I've never had problems with 10w-30 starting in cold weather, so really, I see no need to switch.

 

Its deff the PS pump. I opened the hood, started it up, jumped out and got by the engine as soon as it made the noise. I saw the steering rod (?) jerk (from the firewall to the...uh..pitman arm?) and the noise came from the PS pump. Now..any idea what could be happening? PS pump going out? Cold PS fluid? Am I just being paranoid?

 

wonder if there's some moisture in your steering fluid? it would settle to the bottom of the system and possibly freeze the valving.

 

Any way to check for the moisture? Or should I just not worry? Im not too concerned about not having PS if the pump were to fail. Ice and snow make turning at a stand still or low speed easy enough and at higher speeds, I could barely tell the difference when I didnt have PS before. Maybe I could rig a heater pad to the PS pump ......

 

mines been doing the same thing, let alone it just started happening after i did my timing chain, maybe i bumped something out of place when moving the ps out of the way...
hmmm, how hard is it to flush the p/s?