Screaming loud noise - simple solution

[cam76034]

Yesterday, whilst driving the 94, my calls me on her cellphone and says, "can you hear that noise?" And boy could I hear it, a loud, high pitched A# that was apparently making her drive a rather unpleasant experience. When she got home, she told me that people in other cars and pedestrians were looking at her when she drove by it was so loud.

So I got behind the wheel and headed down the street. Nothing but road noise, since the street surface in my neighborhood is pretty rough while the city repaves them. A couple of blocks away, it began. It sort of sounded like when you drag your fingertip around the edge of a glass, almost harmonic, but very loud. Revving the motor had no effect on the pitch or loudness. But when I came to a stop, the sound quit. Nothing under the hood was jumping out at me. I got back on the road and that's when it began to sound like Oceanic Flight 815, the screeching sound of metal tearing and bending.

I babied it back home, sometimes it would go away when I turned, other turns made it louder. Putting on the brakes sometimes made it stop, but not every time.

So I'm thinking bearing? Or maybe the brake squealer?

Got home and jacked up the front end, pulled the driver's side tire. Turned the rotor back and forth, and a little piece of gravel about the size of a pea falls out. Apparently picked it up from the local road construction and it had lodged between the rotor and the shield. Fortunately, it was the first wheel I checked. Took it over to Ft. Worth and back this morning without a problem.



Hope this may be helpful should one of you find yourself hearing an unidentified banshee under your hood someday.

[sammm]

I had a small twig wedged in between my rotor and dust shield a few years back. It squealed like a stuck pig.

Moral of the story is to not drive your Miata thru flood waters.

[HudsonHawk]

I don't run dust shields on my Jeep for that very reason. I would be forever digging stuff out of them.

[trickyrix]

Nice...

[cam76034]

Speedo cable?

That crossed my mind, even went so far to pull the cable from the cluster but ruled it out when I could make it squeal in reverse at 1mph.