This doesn't sound good

Mercutio

SCCoA Member
Replaced the oxygen sensors and starter in my SC today to fix separate problems. Drove it for the first time in several weeks, and after a while it started sounding as if there's a bunch of rock bouncing around in the engine or transmission. Oil pressure was fine, the car certainly felt/sounded as if it was running on all cylinders, it shifted well and the clutch felt normal, but I brought it home on a rollback. I'm sort of pissed so I'm not going to deal with this today, other than I slid the belt off the supercharger and rotated that by hand. It's not obviously gritty/noisy.

I suppose if I'm lucky I broke a tooth/teeth off the starter. I imagine I'll pull the plugs and the valve covers for inspection and change the oil when I have a chance. Any other suggestions for stuff to check?
 
Still have the cats? That sound is sometimes because guts have failed/broken up inside and rattle like rocks in a tin can. Usually at idle, when the exhaust flow is lowest, I think.

Could be a heat shield on one of them too.

Why were the O2 sensors done?
 
Still have the cats? That sound is sometimes because guts have failed/broken up inside and rattle like rocks in a tin can. Usually at idle, when the exhaust flow is lowest, I think.

Could be a heat shield on one of them too.

Why were the O2 sensors done?

The car has high-flow spun cats, and they're located quite far back. They were installed around 10 years ago. I can't say for sure they're not the source of the problem, but it doesn't sound as if it's coming from that area.

I replaced the O2 sensors because I was getting simultaneous rich and lean codes on the same bank of cylinders.
 
The car has high-flow spun cats, and they're located quite far back. They were installed around 10 years ago.

I've heard that if they're ff too far back, they might not get enough heat to light off and do their job.

My 6 yr. old hi-flos (further back) just failed (wasn't instant, I'm sure)...coolant was slowly being fed into the exhaust, then they (just one, more likely) started to rattle, then blocked so bad I've got overboost on long pulls. Did O2 sensors twice while addressing a rich condition. It's parked now, and I'll do cats and head gaskets as soon as I finish stockpiling parts.

Might your noise be detonation?

Good luck.

Ken
 
I've heard that if they're ff too far back, they might not get enough heat to light off and do their job.

My 6 yr. old hi-flos (further back) just failed (wasn't instant, I'm sure)...coolant was slowly being fed into the exhaust, then they (just one, more likely) started to rattle, then blocked so bad I've got overboost on long pulls. Did O2 sensors twice while addressing a rich condition. It's parked now, and I'll do cats and head gaskets as soon as I finish stockpiling parts.

Might your noise be detonation?

Good luck.

Ken

It doesn't sound like detonation. And I meant to provide more info by saying it's not directly related to load, RPM or gear. The noise was present at idle and standing still, though it did seem to be more noticeable when moving.
 
Hard to make guesses without hearing it, but maybe something clutch related like the throw out bearing or a broken spring?
 
Are you sure the starter you got was correct? I put a G-force 5 Spd in a mustang years ago and the starter snout depth was different than stock. The starter gear never disengaged. Blew the bearings out of it in about 3 miles:rolleyes:

THAT sounded like a handful of nuts in the belhousing


Adam
 
Are you sure the starter you got was correct? I put a G-force 5 Spd in a mustang years ago and the starter snout depth was different than stock. The starter gear never disengaged. Blew the bearings out of it in about 3 miles:rolleyes:

THAT sounded like a handful of nuts in the belhousing


Adam

Adam definitely seems to be the winner here. Old starter on the left, new starter on the right.

DSCN0351_zpsndvgfxjb.jpg~original


This was a new Motocraft starter from Rock Auto, so I'm pretty disappointed. Either this is the wrong design to begin with, or it failed in a matter of miles, just as Adam said his did.

Is there any difference between starters for manual and automatic cars?
 
I just looked through the Rock Auto catalog, and all of the starter pictures look like the new one. Is the gear supposed to be that far forward?
 
I just looked through the Rock Auto catalog, and all of the starter pictures look like the new one. Is the gear supposed to be that far forward?

Is the gear free on the shaft in either direction if you try to spin it by hand?

What happens if you hit the starter leads with jumper cables? Does the gear extend/retract? Compare it to the old one if it works..

Will it slide inside the starter body?

Usually, centrifugal force extends and locks the gear to the shaft when the started is powered, spinning in one direction, then when the flywheel speed picks up, it spins free and retracts when power is cut to the starter.
 
Is the gear free on the shaft in either direction if you try to spin it by hand?

What happens if you hit the starter leads with jumper cables? Does the gear extend/retract? Compare it to the old one if it works..

Will it slide inside the starter body?

Usually, centrifugal force extends and locks the gear to the shaft when the started is powered, spinning in one direction, then when the flywheel speed picks up, it spins free and retracts when power is cut to the starter.

On both the old and new starters, I can rotate the gear by hand in one direction only. And on both, I can pull forward on the gear, but when I let go, the gear retracts to the position shown in the picture above.

And I must be doing something wrong, because I couldn't get either battery to do anything when hooked directly to two different batteries.
 
wow. one of those rare times u don't want to b a winner. lol! Looks like the starter in right pic did not retract into the housing, or disengage. As far as I know, 5.0 and 3.8 auto and 5 spd starters r the same
 
wow. one of those rare times u don't want to b a winner. lol! Looks like the starter in right pic did not retract into the housing, or disengage. As far as I know, 5.0 and 3.8 auto and 5 spd starters r the same

There are lots of worse things it could have been. This is a pain, but much preferable to flywheel or internal engine/trans damage.

I watched a video on jumping a starter. Both starters spin, extend and then retract. However, the gear in the new starter is just sitting way farther forward to begin with.

The reason I replaced the old starter was that when I hit the key, the starter wasn't engaging. I could hear the IC fan slow way down, so obviously the starter was drawing current--it just wasn't doing anything.
 
Both starters spin, extend and then retract. However, the gear in the new starter is just sitting way farther forward to begin with.

But do you witness any damage to either the gear on the starter, or to the flywheel ring gear? Does the new starter sound ok when it spins when jumped? Any cracks in the snout?

I don't see any damage to the gear on the new starter...
 
But do you witness any damage to either the gear on the starter, or to the flywheel ring gear? Does the new starter sound ok when it spins when jumped? Any cracks in the snout?

I don't see any damage to the gear on the new starter...

No obvious damage to the starter that I saw or heard. I didn't get a good look at the ring gear.
 
I know it's a pain to do a full check of the ring gear in the car, but right now, I don't see anything to do with the starter that would cause the running sounds you described.

If you do go to the trouble to inspect all the teeth on the ring gear, and they don't show any trauma, then you might have more cause to keep looking.

I suppose you could double check the starter application, but again, if there was something about it that made the noise on the road, I'd expect you'd be able to quickly spot gear damage.

I'd like to hear the noise, but wouldn't want to encourage more damage ;)

Sorry if it was covered, did you check the crank pulley/balancer yet?

Ken
 
Didn't occur to me to check the crank pulley, but it looks okay at first glance.

Checking the flywheel is part of the plan.
 
This morning I stuck a magnet in the starter hole and rooted around looking for loose nuts, etc. Didn't find anything. I pulled the plugs so I could turn the flywheel by hand, and I was able to visually confirm that all the flywheel teeth are present and in good shape. That said, there could still be something in the bell housing that I just couldn't get to with the magnet (although again, the car shifted fine and the clutch felt good when this happened.

Not that I expected anything different, but the plugs show no signs of anything loose in the combustion chambers.

I disassembled the new starter and saw nothing obviously wrong.

The oil is currently draining, and when it's done, I'll stick the magnet in the drain hole and see if I can pull anything out. If I can't, it won't really mean anything. But if I can, that may give me an answer.

Because the old starter ran fine when I jumped it, I may reinstall it and see what happens.

Unfortunately, I'm currently in the middle of rebuilding/swapping engines in my 95LX and my F150. So I don't have the time, inclination or garage space to go too in-depth on this car at the moment. I don't want to pull any engine parts until I at least get the F150 running. I'm not comfortable with my current ratio of running to non-running cars, so I need to get something fixed before embarking on another major project.
 
Just wanted to update this to say I finally got around to re-installing the old starter, and the noise is gone. That's good, but kind of annoying given that this all began when this same starter wouldn't start the car. Best guess: The terminals on the old starter were just loose and making intermittent contact.

If that's the case, then all of this was unnecessary. So if you buy the Motorcraft starter from Rock Auto, compare it to your old one before you put it in.
 
if you buy the Motorcraft starter from Rock Auto, compare it to your old one before you put it in.

Always a good idea regardless of source ;) ...as you speculated, the new one was a different design. From that photo, everything sat deeper into the bellhousing.

Thanks for the followup and good luck.

Ken
 
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