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Recently I’ve started hearing a sort of gurgling or squeaky rushing liquid sound whenever I start the engine, rev it while in park, or accelerate from a stop. Sounds like it’s coming from under the passenger side of the dashboard. I’ve heard it a couple times before, but now it does it every time I start the engine and about half of the time that I accelerate from a stop. If necessary I can make a video of the sound tomorrow.
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could be the heater core. there could be a restriction in the coolant lines or something… or air in the engine cooling system, or it might be leaking, which would suck because breaking into a dash isn’t fun.
Might want to try this:
Well the heater works great and the engine doesn’t run even a little bit hot. When the engine gets up to operating temp, it very rarely makes the sound.
trying to think about the ‘science’ aspect as to what would cause a gurgling sound. I believe it would mostly likely be caused by air in the engine coolant. Try this simple and easy task to see if it resolves the issue:
another possibility could be a restriction in the heater core.. kinda like how you’d put your finger over the end of a water hose, which could cause the ‘squeaky’ or ‘rushing’ water sound. As you accelerate from a dead stop the water under pressure behind the restriction could spray into the unrestricted low pressure area resulting in a rushing water sound. As you continue to drive the pressure would equalize. In this scenario I would recommend flushing the heater core.
could we get the year/make/model/engine/miles, what major engine repairs, cooling system work, or any other relevant event that might be related to your issue. someone on this forum knows of a common issue with your vehicle. (we can also look up TSB’s with this information)
I’ll need to drain the coolant when I install my new plenum plate, so I’ll find out if that’s the problem at that time. Still not sure when I’ll be doing that though, given the amount of time it’ll take.
There’s a thought… at this point, the only issue with this truck confirmed to not be from the plenum is the clicking sound the rear end is making. I don’t think the cause of that was ever confirmed, but I was never able to pull the diff cover and find out if there were any issues in there.
Plenum plate? Are you replacing a intake manifold gasket? If so, it’s likely leaking/drawing air into the system. The gurgling could be the air pocket that may collect in the heater core as suggested. What kind of truck is it? I would follow the bleeding the cooling system video, and if you are concerned about a leaking manifold gasket, you could watch this video on overheating (I know you said your truck doesn’t overheat) because it demonstrates pressure testing a cooling system:
Good luck.
Yeah the plenum gasket is definitely bad, it’s a pattern failure on the 93-01 generation of Rams. It pings, consumes oil, hesitates, and is now misfiring on all 8 under certain conditions. The only symptom I don’t have is a significant mpg loss, but everything else checks out. I bought a Hughes plenum repair kit which includes a new plate, gasket, manifold gaskets and all the bolts needed, I just don’t feel confident tearing it apart myself.
My Ram had such a gurgling sound, and I did a video of an unusual cause of this and the easy repair, below, titled “mystery of the gurgling heater core”.
[video width=425 height=344 type=youtube]db2nR0EMOIs[/video]
I’m not saying it isn’t the intake plenum, but rather I’m saying it could be any tiny air leak from any part of the cooling system. If the leak is high up you may not see much fluid under the car because the fluid level drops below that point at rest. A pinhole leak may not leak much fluid when the engine is running because of a kind of ball valve effect.
Normally when the engine cools after being run, the volume of coolant contracts and creates a slight vacuum. That vacuum is designed to siphon fluid from the coolant reservoir back into the cooling system (“auto-burping”) as the engine cools. If there is a tiny leak, air is drawn in through the hole rather than coolant from the reservoir. The air rises to the top of the cooling system, and this produces an air fluid level inside the heater core. When you start first thing in the morning, you hear gurgling as the air is displaced upward by water flow.
Well thats definitely the exact sound I’m hearing. If the issue persists after the plenum is fixed, then I’ll pursue your method. I’m leaning towards vacuum leak through plenum because it doesn’t do it only on start up, it does it under acceleration occasionally as well.
Just curious, have you had to replace the plenum gasket on your Ram? After spending some time on the Dodge forum, it’s become apparent to me that nearly every Magnum engine vehicle has this problem at some point in its life, and for one to go over 200,000 miles without it blowing as mine has is exceedingly rare.
Just curious, have you had to replace the plenum gasket on your Ram? After spending some time on the Dodge forum, it’s become apparent to me that nearly every Magnum engine vehicle has this problem at some point in its life, and for one to go over 200,000 miles without it blowing as mine has is exceedingly rare.
No, I’ve never replaced the plenum gasket(’98 Ram 5.9L about 205,000 km). I have had bad mileage and a subtle misfire at low idle speed, but nothing else to suggest a plenum leak. Last month I had a look down the throttle body and the intake manifold doesn’t look unusual, no oil there (yet). Running fine otherwise.
First thing that came to my mind was air in the cooling system but I do like the suggestions that have been made. Keep us posted on what you find as I’m curious as to what you find.
I actually had a similar problem with my 05′ Honda Civic. I know it’s a completely different vehicle, but I want to share anyway. I must have bled the cooling system about 5 times using the method Eric had shown in his how to video for Bleeding a cooling system, and I was still getting a gurgling sound coming from right behind my dash where my heater and air cond. controls are when I’d accelerate.This would usually improve as the engine warmed up, but could still be faintly heard. I had no issues with overheating either. I thought I was going crazy!
I had looked all over for a solution to this and finally found a post someone had made on another forum explaining that this comes up a lot with my particular vehicle, but I even had a friend who owns a new Chevy HHR tell me he has a similar thing going on with that vehicle too.
Anyway, I finally got rid of the gurgling and here is how I did it:
First thing I did was turn my temperature control inside the car all the way to hot, with the fan off.
Then, when my engine was cool enough to do so, I took the radiator cap off, and used one of those Lisle spill free funnels and the proper attachment to attach the funnel to the radiator filler neck.
I then started the engine and just let it idle until it reached normal operating temperature, after which I filled the funnel with some coolant. You don’t need to fill the entire funnel obviously, but put a decent amount in there. You’re not looking to really add this coolant to the system permanently, just for this procedure. The spill free funnel is great because you can just take what you didn’t use and put it back in the bottle.
At that point I jacked up the car on the passenger side using the tow hook on that side at the front. I went all the way to the point that the wheel was off the ground on that side.
Finally, I started increasing the engine speed and then began squeezing all the heater hoses, especially the ones I had toward the back of the engine bay. Not in a constant way, but sort of in a massaging way. Just squeeze for a second and let go, then move up the hose until you almost reach the end, or as far as clearance allows. You should see air bubbles in the coolant in the funnel when you squeeze. These hoses get really hot so it’s best to use some kind of protective gloves when doing this.
I would increase the engine speed periodically throughout doing this, and also made sure the cooling fans came on two times.
After going over all the hoses about 5 or 6 times, and having the fans come on twice, I shut the engine off, removed the funnel, replaced the radiator cap, and lowered the vehicle off the jack.
Took it out for a drive a few times since and no gurgling. When I started it to drive it in to work this morning it was completely cold and still no gurgling. It would always gurgle when the engine was cold before I did the procedure.
Basically air was trapped in my heater core and no matter how many times I bled the system it would not come out. This finally got it out.
Hopefully if this doesn’t help out the original poster who asked this question, it helps someone else.
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