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Hey, guys. I own a 2000 Chev Suburban 5.3 4WD with 310,000k. I guess regular maintenance keeps it going strong! Problem is a sound of ‘gusty wind’ when driving at highway speed >40 mph, coming somewhere near the radiator fan. Imagine sitting in an ice fishing hut with a gusty wind and you will hear the sound I hear (OK, so I’m Canadian, how can you tell). This happens even when there is no wind, not usually at rest even when warm, it doesn’t seem to be more or less noisy when I shift into neutral when on the highway). I’ve never heard it in the winter but maybe this year. No overheating yet, nothing dripping from the fan clutch or water pump, no apparent problem with the (original) water pump, and the shaft and fan bearings seem to be OK, A/C and heater work fine. I had a look at the fan clutch, and when the engine is off it turns by hand with some resistance, which I think is normal for this vehicle (thermal clutch according to Haynes). At startup the fan turns normally and blows air, but when I rev the cold engine I hear the fan slowly accelerate with engine speed (I think this is normal for the clutch to do that when not yet hot). Of course at highway speed I haven’t crawled into the engine compartment to see what is happening (grin). I guess I could put a video camera in there to see and hear, if you think it would help. It seems my fan clutch is engaging and disengaging at highway speed, causing a gusty wind sound.
Do you think my fan clutch is starting to fail, giving me a gusty wind sound heard in the cab? Is there some way to test that fan clutch to be more sure of the diagnosis? I haven’t tried a newspaper trick when the engine is hot to see if the newspaper will stop the fan blades when the clutch should be fully engaged. I haven’t yet tried to warm the vehicle up and then shut down and spin the blades to see if more resistance is seen.
Does anybody have any other ideas? Who suggests just replacing the fan clutch to see if the problem goes away?
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It might be normal, it’s hard to say without hearing the noise. Besides the fan clutch you might also check the air intake as I’ve heard noises like that come from problems with air filters or hose routing that can also produce some strange noises.
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