ksg

Whatever you do, God forbid you should put water in your engine. It will hydrolock and be ruined. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If the engine runs you can use a stethoscope or listening tube to locate the noise approximately. I would suspect the waterpump got worse and is affecting the timing belt operation. This happened to the previous owner of my ES300 and it was fixed (for a price) without any apparent consequences in 30K additional miles of driving.

Ok, here's the deal. This car hasn't been driven in a while. It's a '94 ES300 with approx 125K miles. Car is in very good condition. Approx June '08 I drove car across town on freeway at 70+ mph no problems, noises, etc... then it started running a little hot so I shut it down and had it towed home. After it had completely cooled at home I discover radiator neck was cracked and water pump was leaking slightly. I filled back up with coolant and cranked let it run for a few minutes no noises or anything, still ran well. Deciced to let it sit and fix later. Well about year later(June '09) put in a new battery and it cranks right up and runs well but has a nocking sound in the engine. Anybody have any ideas what could have happened just letting it sit there. This is a really nice car still and hate to scrap it due to the engine. Someone told me it could have deposits on the pistons from sitting in the grass that can be taken care of by running some H2o through the engine, but sound a little far fetched to me. Hate to scrap this car still drives well, everything works, and the A/C still blows cold.

Time to time I experienced dimming of lights and accessories for a few seconds, sometimes with erratic running of the engine at the same time. Seemed especially likely with a warm engine when coming down to idle after a run (like getting off highway and entering stop-and-go city traffic). Maybe worse in wet weather. Definitely worse with lots of accessories on or when stepping on the brake pedal. I don't refer to the LED gauge needles which many have posted on - rather it seems to be the whole system. On the alternator I took off the rear cover, voltage regulator and brush holder - there was a great deal of filth on the slip rings and they were also scored all the way around to the point I could feel the grooves with a finger. I have had a similar issue on a couple of other cars in the past. Anyway, I cleaned everything up. It will take a few weeks to know if this helps. Meanwhile I thought it was worth mentioning in case other owners might have the same issue. Sooner or later a new alternator might be needed.