Loud Constant Whining Sound

A few days ago my 2002 Windstar started showing these symptoms. It has a loud whining sound that sounds like a large fan blowing. This sound is constant (doesn't vary in pitch or intensity) whether I'm parked, driving or accelerating. It's always there; doesn't come and go. When I kill the engine, it doesn't stop immediately. It winds down like a fan motor would. At the same time, I've noticed that my A/C only cools intermittently, and mostly not. I don't know if these two issues are related or not. I may start my van and the A/C works until I stop at a store ten minutes later, then it will stop cooling. It still blows, but doesn't cool. Other times, it doesn't work for ten, twenty or thirty minutes, then it starts cooling. Heating works fine.

Back to the whining sound. This may just be my imagination, but since this has come up, when I've popped the hood to look into it, it seems like there is a lot more air than normal blowing off the engine. I've popped this hood a thousand times checking oil and stuff and I just don't remember the flow of air that I'm getting now. The sound seems to be coming from one of the fans at the front, but I really can't pinpoint it.

Hopefully this description has been sound enough to give someone an idea of what may be wrong. I've never seen this before. And I really hope fixing the whining sound will get my A/C to cooling again. I live in Texas, so I need A/C year-round. Oh, and I would like to be able to fix this myself for less than $10 and under 10 minutes. Is that asking too much? :smile: Thanks in advance.

Are you sure that whining is not coming from your wife? Just kidding. The next time you hear that noise, diconnect one of the radiator motors. Check them both by disconnecting (alternately) them both. Usually it is the one on the right (battery side) that fails first. If that stops the noise, then you know that you will need a new radiator fan assembly. :banghead:

I pulled the power on the right (battery) side and the whining settled down. I'll work on getting the fan shroud assembly replaced.

Could this in any way cause an intermittent cooling in the A/C? I don't see how they are related, but I guess they could be in some way I don't understand. If not, is there any other reason for the A/C to cool intermittently other than a failing compressor? Thanks.

I looked further into this today before breaking down and ordering a shroud online for $160 shipped. Seems that the problem was with a relay. In the relay box under the hood, there are two related relays; a high speed fan relay and a low speed fan relay. I pulled both relays and the van wouldn't start. I put the low speed relay in and the van wouldn't start, which told me that either the low speed was bad or the van wants both of them in there. I switched and put the high speed in and the low speed out and the van started and the fan blew at a normal speed. This told me there was probably a problem with the low speed, even though it didn't make much sense that the fan blew low speed when the high speed was the only relay in.

In the end, I put both relays back in and the fan blew at the normal low speed. When the temp sensor gets over a certain temp, I think it's around 225, it kicks the high speed relay in and blows the fans faster. A likely problem with the low speed relay was kicking the high speed relay into gear. This is my diagnosis, at least. It's odd that the fans are blowing at a normal speed now with both relays in, but I still feel the low speed relay is bad. I'll keep an eye on it and if it starts blowing high again, I'll replace the low speed relay and see how that works.

Hope this info helps someone else. It sure saved me $150+ and a lot of time.