MTFCA Forum

Been awhile since I’ve posted. Fingers crossed on this one. I’m usually pretty good at diagnosing strange engine / chassis noises but have yet to locate this one. When I first start up the car (cold) there has recently been a strange high pitch metallic ringing jingling sound. In the past I’ve heard a similar sound when the lower fan pulley has a loose pin. Have also heard it when a spark plug rattles from a broken porcelain and even when I changed key rings and they were jingling. It seems to go away after driving a little. Sounds like something really simple but for the life of me I don’t know what it is.

That could be a lot of things. I'd look for anything loose on or around the engine, like the horn, crank pully, fan parts, engine pans, engine mounts, and so forth. Try stepping lightly on the various pedals to see if that changes it. A generator might make a noise like that. A starter drive issue might allow the starter pinion to drag very lightly on the ring gear. You might try disconnecting the generator and grounding the output terminal (not the cutout terminal) and taping the generator wire and see if the sound goes away or changes.

Check your oil for metalic pieces

Could even be cam gear mesh tightening with heat. Wiggle the gear thru the oil filler hole. Same for loose generator gear.
Remove the fan belt to eliminate crank pulley/pin looseness. Grounding the generator confirmed an issue in that region that turned out to be a cracked, then broken ford cam gear.

Just pulled one apart with a noise, who ever built the trans only used two washers instead of three under the clutch drum, that allowed the brake drum to move backwards and the six bolts where tapping the oil pan, but an extra was the ring that holds the clutch spring on was rubbing against the ball bearing fourth main. I never heard the noise, engine was out when I got it but I had to find the noise!

With sincere apologies in advance....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U_R6tJfr-M

The generator is an interesting direction I didn’t think of. I didn’t mention it before but I have 10,000 miles on this engine rebuild. I change the oil about every 700 miles and never saw any debris in the drained oil. It’s interesting that it’s mostly in starting up cold and goes away for the most part once the engine is running, though maybe I can hear it at running speed.

Does it have a regular beat/cadence, or is it a random sound? Does changing engine speed cause the pinging to vary any?

I had this kind of sound for years and never found the source until the radiator fan shaft broke.
Then I knew it was the shaft running in a worn out bushing and being under load from the belt tension made it break finally.

Mark discovered the cause of his mystery noise, but decided to post the answer in it’s own thread…

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23715

The answer was an exhaust manifold gland ring that came loose and travelled down the exhaust pipe and ended up caught at the muffler.

Yes, an exhaust manifold gasket gland worked its way down the exhaust pipe. It was about 1” from the end where it meets the muffler.