started the car this morning like usual to go to school and I noticed what sounded like loose metal rattling around.

I popped the hood and the sound was pretty damn loud and made me nervous, there is nothing actually rattling and the sound gets much less when I rev the engine. I was listening very carefully and i"m positive it's coming from the valve cover/ head. It's not ticking but sounds like loose metal rattling around inside the head lol, not a very good sound.

and then when the car heats up like 5 minutes later or so the noise gets much less and eventually goes away. When I came back from school it had cooled down again and again I started it up and the loose metal ratlling sound from the head, let it warm up and reved it a bit and it went away.

this is making me pretty nervous as it's not really valve tick but sounds like a piece of metal rattling around inside the valve cover until it warms up.

I don't think it was like this last week and I chagned to synthetic oil 2 months ago and it has been running fine, 5w50 Canadian tire brand full synthetic., oil i close to the full mark.

what do you guys think?

 

maybe it's been getting colder out and the 5w50 is just too thin when cold? will it damage my engine if I'm hearing all that noise and rattling when cold?

I don't really want to change the oil again when there only a few hundred kms of use since the oil change.

also where I live no place sells 15w50 or 20w50 synthetic, it's either 5w50 or 10w40 or 0w50.

 

What was your oil pressure when you first started it?

 

yeah might want to check the oil level too

 

the engine always take a few seconds to start, and when I'm cranking and the engine hasn't started yet it doesn't show any oil pressure but as soon as the engine starts it always jumps to a bit over 4 bar and stays there until fully warmed up and then it slowly drops.

oil pressure seems fine, when I heard that noise immediately looked at the oil pressure gauge ant it showed about 4.25 bar.

oil level is full it might need a tiny bit top up to get it to the max level like maybe a quarter of a quart more if that but I usually like to keep it topped up to the max level.

 

Maybe an injector? they can be pretty loud...

i

 

no no, I've had the car for a long time now I know what the injectors sound like.

it's way louder than the injectors and the injectors make fast "ticking sounds"

this sounds like almost a head shield rattling really loudly but it's coming from the valve cover / cylinder head. I looked around and there is nothing loose or rattling and when I listen carefully and put my ear against the head I can hear the noise coming from that area and when I rev the engine when it is cold the sound diminishes, when the engine gets hot it goes away full and the noise left is only the ticking of the injectors and some slight lifter noise.

the noise scared me at first I thought the engine was running without oil......

 

I started getting that same sound on my 89 N/A two weeks ago. Before I had a chance to look into it the clutch slave cylinder went bye, bye. It was definitely a rattling sound. Like something was loose or rubbing.

I was thinking that maybe when I did the timing belt recently that I might have missed a nut or bolt and it was rubbing on a pulley or something. But then it stopped once it warmed up. So there went that idea.

I'm running regular oil right now though I do plan on switching to synth soon.

Oh Yeah, I don't have the cover on the air filter right now since I was curious how it would effect things. Definitely made the exhaust louder when I rev it up, but that's another story. Anyway I was hearing it coming from the air filter.

Soon a I get the clutch fixed I'm going to start looking into it.

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Alex Portanova
1989 944 N/A
1999 Chrysler 300M
1992 Harley FXSTC

 

If you don't already have one you might want to pick up one of those mechanic's stethoscopes. They are really helpful in trying to isolate where a particular noise is coming from. The timing belt tensioner stud broke on my car once and I got a weird rattling sound coming from the timing belt cover. I shut it down quickly, pulled the cover and - wow was I lucky... I hope that isn't your problem.

 

sure its not the heat shield under the header- mine rattles like crazy when its cold- start it cold and then press on the heat shield sticking out by the oil filter and see if it stops- they have a tendency to break on the braket.

 

I found I got a lot of top end clatter with synthetic and probably because its an old motor. As long as you don't work it too hard it should be ok. Once up to temp then life is good.

 

Why not simply pull the valve cover, (be careful with the bolts) and make sure its nothing big?

 

actually sound went away.

It was actually my ac compressor, adjustment strut and one of the month bolts had both sheared off and it being held on by only one bolt. I used a control arm bolt and nut to secure the one side that had a broken bolt.

I was positive the sound was from the valve cover but after I secured the ac compressor (still need to replace the strut) there is not more scary sounds on start up.

 

yeah first thing I did was pull the timing belt cover and the belts were fine then I found the broken Ac compressor mounts after I tugged on the AC./alternator belt and saw that the AC compressor moves.

 

Interesting, I just did retention my belts and I thought I heard mine coming from the air filter since I'm running it without the cover. Now I'm wondering if maybe I missed fully tightening one of the AC bolts since it's right below the air filter that could be my noise also.

I have to get under her this weekend and change out the clutch slave and hoses. Found out only the clutch master had been changed just before I got the car. The slave lasted 4,000 miles after that. Anyway I'll check out the ac while I'm under there.

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Alex Portanova
1989 944 N/A
1999 Chrysler 300M
1992 Harley FXSTC