Greetings... One of my first posts here... I'm fairly
certain I know what the problem is, but wanted to ask first just to
make sure, see if anyone else has had this problem.



I've got a 2002 4.7L 4x2 1500 Quad Cab. I live in Virginia Beach
and we just had Hurricane Isabel a few months back. At the time I
was living in Chesapeake (an area known for flooding) and had gone back
to check on things. While trying to get out there I'd drove
through some water trying to find a way out there (there are only 3
roads you can take, and the first two were flooded out). It only
got up to the bumper on the truck, but I heard the alternator belt
squeal a few times. After having driven through the water, the
truck developed a low whir... sounds kinda like a bearing going
bad. It speeds up with the motor as I rev it getting a little bit
higher pitched.



At first it went away when the truck warmed up, but now its there
fairly constantly. I believe its the serpentine belt tensioner as
its rather low on the engine and definitely would have been submerge in
water. I'm guessing I got water in the bearing and caused it to
start failing. I was just going to buy a new OEM belt and
Tensioner (~$100) and replace them. Truck just rolled 30k
miles. Thoughts? Could it be anything else? Should I
bother having it checked by the dealer, or just replace it
myself? (I'm mechanically inclined, I work on Nissan 300ZX Twin
Turbos in my spare time... my hobby). So changing it out
isn't an issue... I was just curious about whether it might be
something else other than the tensioner that's whirring...



Thanks!


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