Hey guys, I'm having a weird issue which suddenly started yesterday morning and has me concerned. Whenever I accelerate, or decelerate, there seems to be a rattling/grinding/clicking sound coming from the front part of the engine and does not sound good. Its not completely consistent with accel/decel, but its very noticeable. It happens on idle a little bit (is quieter, and sounds more like a clicking) as well as after the car comes off from the initial start a minute or two after starting it up. I have no power loss yet, no codes thrown, not overheating, not smoking, all fluids good, not leaking anything. From what I've read these chains are pretty durable and I'm just over 140k. I believe the chain was also replaced around 90k.
I initially took it to a friend who specializes in V8 builds and he listened to it with a stethoscope. He listened all over the place, and narrowed it down to the area around the timing chain/cover. When the grinding happens, you can kind of feel it happening in the middle of the distributor if you put a few fingers on it, and its VERY noticeable and almost feels like a grinding. So I thought maybe my distributor was bad, but I replaced it earlier this morning with a brand new one, and am still hearing this issue. I looked down in the shaft and checked the cam out, although its slightly rusted it looks fine and nothing out of the ordinary. I also hand cranked the power steering and water pump, both of which seem just fine (I have no play in the water pump and like I said, am not leaking anything). I also took all the belts off and cranked it (just for a minute). The engine itself sounded completely different (in a bad way) but I was unable to tell if the same noise was occurring.
My thoughts are that while its unlikely, the chain is about to go bad or perhaps something came loose and is grinding around in there? I feel like if it was the cam, heads, or something in the shortblock I would be seeing either some misfires, power loss, etc. Its just so noticeable when I put a few fingers on the distributor, that something feels like its grinding around in there. I just wanted to run it by you guys and see if you could think of anything else before I go tear apart my front end.
I initially took it to a friend who specializes in V8 builds and he listened to it with a stethoscope. He listened all over the place, and narrowed it down to the area around the timing chain/cover. When the grinding happens, you can kind of feel it happening in the middle of the distributor if you put a few fingers on it, and its VERY noticeable and almost feels like a grinding. So I thought maybe my distributor was bad, but I replaced it earlier this morning with a brand new one, and am still hearing this issue. I looked down in the shaft and checked the cam out, although its slightly rusted it looks fine and nothing out of the ordinary. I also hand cranked the power steering and water pump, both of which seem just fine (I have no play in the water pump and like I said, am not leaking anything). I also took all the belts off and cranked it (just for a minute). The engine itself sounded completely different (in a bad way) but I was unable to tell if the same noise was occurring.
My thoughts are that while its unlikely, the chain is about to go bad or perhaps something came loose and is grinding around in there? I feel like if it was the cam, heads, or something in the shortblock I would be seeing either some misfires, power loss, etc. Its just so noticeable when I put a few fingers on the distributor, that something feels like its grinding around in there. I just wanted to run it by you guys and see if you could think of anything else before I go tear apart my front end.
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