Engine noise have been told either water pump puppy or belt tensioner any way to check and be sure which it is?

thanks

 

Use a section of hose as a stethoscope to check the WP and tensioner for noise.

 

The grinding noise that's been happening for a while is getting aggravating and when I took it to the mechanic that has worked on the car before he said it was the water pump shaft pulley going out so I order a water pump and then while I'm waiting on it to come in another person tells me that it's not the water pump it's the belt tensioner pulley so I'm not sure which one it is now the one thing I do know is that if you take the tension off the belt take the belt off of the alternator pulley so they're slacking it the water pump connection pulling is good and tight there's no play in it there's no moving it at all the tensioner will move obviously up and down but it will also move side to side if you're looking at the engine from the front little move left to right about a quarter to a half an inch so I was just wondering if that makes sense to anyone and if it is the belt tensioner and it's just making some kind of noise is it something that I can just leave it alone if I can tolerate the noise or does that noise mean that it's getting ready to go out and jump the belt and cause even more problems

 

Have you tried the hose method to narrow down the area of the noise?

If your spending this much time on this, might replace both.