Hey guys! New here. First post.

Looking for help with this very weird thing that seems to have gotten worse. 05 Chrysler Town and Country has a periodic clunking noise like water, possibly from the piping I show in the video link.

I am semi-handy (I can change brakes, belts, plugs, etc)

 

Additional notes

- only happens when running
- sounds kind of like water
- sounds stronger from driver's side
- sounds like it's right behind the console
- happens even after killing the AC
- forgive my ignorance of the 2 pipes in the video, but they are very hot to the touch but I felt like the thump came from them when I did touch a pipe

 

That is really odd, I've not heard that before. When you say happens after killing the AC, you mean turning off the whole HVAC system? (Power off on the climate control panel)

The only thing that I'm wondering is either something stuck in the fan motor (but it's not regular enough for that I think) or something jamming/stuck in the blend doors.

 

Thanks for the reply. YES, I mean killing the entire climate control panel.

I thought it was something with the air since it sounded perhaps like water sputtering, but it's gotten louder and persists with the HVAC off.

Do you happen to know what the silver pipes in the video are? I guessed (maybe wrongly) that they were the source of the noise. I'd say something with the cooling, but I don't think engine cooling runs that way.

 

Ah, ok. Well from the video it doesn't sound much like water to me, but that could just be the microphone/recording.

Those two silver pipes I believe are the cooling system feed to the cabin heater matrix (radiator).

This is what it looks like:



Which does look similar to the component in the video. I'll have to dig the repair manuals out and check, I've not got them handy right now.

Oh, but I've just found a youtube video on replacing the heater matrix and sure enough it's that spot there:
I wonder if there is an airlock in the system. Have you recently had any cooling problems, lack of coolant, radiator change, etc?

 

Thanks for the feedback and the video link. It does indeed look like those pipes go to the heater core.

No recent work on the cooling system, but my wife said the van overheated the other day. It's not a very common problem and the vehicle has generally been just great. It resolved itself and I didn't think much about it, especially since the sputtering noise predates that issue...could very well be related.

Airlock in the cooling system? Hmm. I don't know exactly what that is, but it could be something. It's a kind of sputtering / water-like noise, but as the video shows (poor audio) it's loud enough that it makes a kind of clunk. Up until this point, it has sounded more like water. It's periodic and hard to catch a recording of it.