Ever since I changed the timing belt, water pump, pulleys, serpentine, etc last week I've had a strange clicking/ticking noise on cold starts only. It's really loud and will last for maybe a minute max and then completely disappears, only when the truck's completely cold. It appears to be coming from either the PCS steering pump, or alternator (factory original - 93k mi). I took the tension off the serpentine belt the other night to spin the steering pump by hand and everything felt smooth and tight, didn't check the alternator at the time because I thought for sure it was the pump was dying on me. The steering is working fine and the voltage off the alternator is as usual.

The only thing that happened during the timing belt change was the alternator rolling back from where I had it sitting and landing on my tie rod/drag link, but it's not like it fell three feet and landed on concrete. I can't imagine that had anything to do with it, unless there was something already cracked and that little bump finished it off.

Was wondering if anybody has ever had (or heard of) a Toyota alternator losing a bearing/bushing? The noise it definitely taking place during rotation of some assembly and it's timed like it's happening in one spot during rotation.....if that makes any sense at all..............and it's not like something hitting, it's definitely mechanical and coming from the alternator/pump area

Never had a problem like that here :confused:

I'm now 99% sure it's the PSC pump making the noise. I can barely feel any play in the shaft and it spins smoothly, so I'm going to run it a little longer since I have a 3-day wheeling trip starting today and a spare PSC pump in the tool box.

Ended up pulling the pump during the flood and throwing my spare PSC pump on, the noise is now gone.......

I sent the bad one off to Kelvin at PSC to see what's going on with it, that pump has about 15k miles max on it.

i've had my tc pump in for 5 years and its still going strong, i was thinking idler pulley when you said it was rattling, glad you got it sorted, thxs for the info on the auto trans as well