Black51

Upon narrowing the noise down to the cam tower, it definitely sounds like it's time to start opening things up.

Wise words tend to come from Tom.

I would probably start by just unscrewing all the tower plugs and sticking a mini snake light in one end to see if there is anything obvious bouncing around in there. My bet is you'll likely have to take the whole tower right off in the end. It should take you 1-3 hrs depending on how your familiarity with removing the stuff Tom mentioned above, and depending on how organized your tools are and so on...

Seems like a spring is snapped and half of it is bouncing around in the tower, or a lifter is broke in two, just smacking around in there or something.

Black51

I would think there would be some pretty evident oil leakage going on if a bolt was not tightened down at all.

EDIT: Although at the same time, the car seems to be running quite well otherwise. Just sounds 'clackitty'

jpop8807

Correction lol let me clarify. The noise isn't coming from the cam tower area itself. But the area the distributor is attached too. I'm not sure what its called but the place were the end of the camshaft is and the rotor and so forth. The thing that covers the timing belt. Once I finish work today I will take all that off. I have my new LR ignition set thing. It came in yesterday. Do you think its possible a piece of the rotor broke off. And maybe tumbling around inside the distributor cover area? As far as I know I have no oil leaks in the area except at the back of the cam tower. On the far side(not the hood side). Sorry my terminology sucks.

Thom

The bolt securing the locking nut of the cam gear onto the cam could have got loose, which will result in the cam gear progressivly damaging the pin and/or the pin seat in the cam.

Tom M'Guinn

Ah, if you mean part #2 in the picture Brian posted above, that's fairly simple to get off. You have to remove the three bolts you can see, and then two more that are under the top of the black plastic timing belt cover. To get to the two hidden bolts, you need to take off the little M6 bolts holding the top timing belt cover in place (or at least enough of them to pull the plastic cover back enough to get at the two hidden bolts). Probably worth doing that since it will give you a good look under the distributor cap and the cam bolt Thom mentions. Chances are the problem lies inside the tower (valve keeper, spring or something broken, etc.), but you might as well check out the easy stuff first.

Black51

Flathead stubby's are your friend for getting that stinkin' distributor cap off.

jpop8807

Definitely checking out the easy stuff first. Well so far I have taken the distributor off. Most of the places on the distributor are really corroded. The wires look fine. I'm about to run to a parts store and by and extension seem to have misplaced mine. To get to the black timing belt cover i'm removing the top intercooler pipe that goes over the air filter area. Upon this I noticed alot of milky oily residue inside the intercooler. Could that be the source of my coolant leak. Could my turbo be leaking oil and coolant. Anyways back to the matter at hand I'm praying its nothing in the valvetrain area cause i'm broke. Lol. But honestly the noise when I did the stethoscope method seemed to be coming from where the cam gear area is. Anyways update you guys later when I have done more work.

jpop8807

Ok I took the cam gear cover off everything looks fine under there. The timing belt looks pretty new. Then again the guy I bought the car from said it got changed around 10k ago. At first when I had this ticking/clankitty noise. I just waited for the car to warm up or gave it a bit of throttle and it would stop. I will try to put it back together but with the new ignition and hope that works.

Jfrahm

If the #1 plug fouled I'd suspect a broken valve spring or the like on #1.

jpop8807

OK when I took all out they looked pretty fine. They all did have electrode wear. But the #1 plug had more of a whitish tip wearas the others were more brownish black.

Black51

Unscrew a couple of the cam housing screws on top. Very simple. Stick a snake light in there and try to find something rattling in there.

jpop8807

The cam housing screws are the large allen shaped screws right? I will try to get a snake light and a magnet tomorrow. On a side note whats the easiest way to take out the coil?

jpop8807

OH yes and black the flat head stubby was a savior.

Black51

Yes, 4 of them right along the top. Big round ones.

Tom M'Guinn

6 of them actually.