Ok I screwed up bad this time. My engine bay has always been filthy and I had planned to clean it while visiting my dad who has always been a DIY'er who knew what he was doing. I let him wash my engine bay and allowed him to do two things I knew we're big no-no's. 1: The car was still pretty hot....not just-driven hot but the engine was too hot to keep hands on and temp gauge woulda read around the middle if I had started it. 2: He used degreaser and a pressure washer and only covered the fuse box and battery. I must say that the engine bay is pretty nice and clean now and when I initially started it up everything seemed fine. But now there is a whining noise that won't go away. The best way that I can describe it is it's like a high pitched supercharger whine only annoying as hell. It happens when my car is revved in neutral too at a standstill so I know it's not coming from the drivetrain. I opened up the hood to try and pinpoint the source of the whine and it appears to come from the ac compressor/area in front of the dipstick.

This really sucks..anyone have any ideas what the problem and fix is? This is for a 98 civic LX auto by the way.


Thanks

 

Alternator bearing/s need to be replaced.

 

A belt? Or alt going out

 

Just thought i'd update this thread in case anyone finds themselves with the same problem in the future. It ended up to be the AC idler pulley. Ran to Autozone and picked up a new one and everything is nice and quiet now.

 

Low power steering fluid will cause a whining sound too

 

good work reporting back with the remedy to problem.