New noise in the front end of my Bonneville?????

Probably a Wheel Bearing Hub assembly.

Drive it fast enough to make the noise and jerk the steering wheel a bit to the left & right. If the pitch of the noise changes or goes away completely it a sure sign of a worn WB hub.

Mine Bonneville would start growling around 27 mph, a Z-24 I had made noise when it was driven over 65 mph.

good luck

Harryface

If it sounds like a bad heater fan it might be a converter heat shield.

The noise goes up and down with road speed not engine speed. But it is a similar type noise only less metallic. It's almost like a buzz that gets faster the faster you drive.

It does seem to change in pitch a bit when turning the steering wheel back and forth going down the road.

I jacked the car up on both lower A-frames and the noise can still be heard and sounds like it's coming from the passenger side. I think I will try a new wheel bearing/hub.

One thing that always drives me crazy is the alternator bearing going bad.

You mentioned that it only happens while driving the car, but I had one drive me crazy with similiar symptoms....thought it was the transaxle, front end, etc. Finally the alternator quit all together, stranding me in the middle of nowhere. (alternator had only about 30 K on it) when the alternator quit so did the noise.

Peter, I don't think this noise is coming from the alternator. We jacked it up on the lower a-frames last evening and you could still hear the noise, loudest on the passenger side of the car. With the hood up standing in front of the car I couldn't hear it. Besides, if it were the alternator bearings the noise would be there whenever the engine was running. This noise doesn't start till about 25 miles per hour and speeds up as the road speed increases.

Thanks to all for their posts.

I'm going to change the right side bearing/hub assembly and hope that's it.

Try looking at this, My Roadmaster after driving a while started to make noise First thought of ball joints, took to a shop who checked it out and said joints were not worn, he could not find source of the noise so he grease everything and thought that would fix it.

Didn't work after running a while it started again.

So I bit the bullet and started to tare down the fount end my self repacked bearings etc. then pulled the caliper and there it was, there is a spacer in back of the break pad that had rusted ,deformed, and slipped out of place. I replaced the breaks and spacer and it fixed the problem.

Cheers

E>R>P Peter, I don't think this noise is coming from the alternator. We jacked

Well, we solved the problem this morning. I took a chance a replaced the passenger side wheel hub/bearings. Noise gone. When we got the old hub off, I thought we were wasting time and money as the old hub/bearings felt very smooth, no roughness at all. A test drive proved it was the noise maker.

Thanks to all who replied for your help.

Glad you solved the proble & it was the right side. Sometimes the noise tranfers from one side to the other when the load is taken off while turning and you get fooled which side it really is thats making the noise.

There is no way to determine a worn bearing by spinning it by hand,

Harryface