Chingling???

Hey guys, I recently noticed a sound coming from underneath the car that sounds like someone shaking a can of marbles suddenly. I notice it when I go over a short sharp bump. I have only noticed it now because they are doing construction near my house, and the temporary road conditions are brutal. I don't hear it any other time. I've crawled underneath the car and checked every square inch. Everything looks secure, lines are secure, exhaust is solid, what could it be? I almost sounds like a clip on the back side of a cap is rattling around in the cap.

I'm stumped. Usually water pump failing sounds very very much like marbles in a can.

Albertj

Check your sway bar links first.

AA wrote:

Check your sway bar links first.

Oh, heck yeah. The OE sway bar link will break but not be visible. They are little steel shafts inside big plastic sleeves. When they break it is *NOT* obvious, you have to jack the car up by the frame to find the break. After a while the rust on the bolt ends holds them such that when the car is sitting on its wheels on the ground it's all pushed together and if one link is broken and the other not, you may not be able to push the bar up enough to inspect.

May have to really pivot the bars hard by hand to find this one.

Albertj

Oh and another thing - this is a longshot - BUT check the brake calipers and brake caliper brackets carefully to see if you have a loose caliper or an issue with a pad or two. You can reach behind the wheels while car is on the ground, and feel for the caliper bolts, but it's best to take off the wheels to check because then you can fix it right then.

Larger dealers and repair shops will have caliper bolts sitting; you can get a hardware store bolt (usually grade 8, you will need a stack of washers too) to use temporarily if you have to order replacements, but not for long because the bolts will fatigue and fail after a while. Get the factory bolts either from dealer or from a junkyard and be sure to use loctite (at least loctite blue) on the threads.

Albertj

Thanks for the advice and direction guys, I will check it out!

I've always heard that on cars and checked the exhaust heat shields. It is either where they attach to the body or when they break the welds on an exhaust piece like the cat. You can spend all day looking and never find it too.

A failing motor/transmission mount can also cause a racket when moving over bumps or through corners, though I would describe it more as a 'clunk' sound.

tap on the cat also, see if it's the same sound.

Just replaced the cat about a month ago and it is solid. Its definately not a deep clunck, but rather like a washer is loose. It seems like some of the electronic mounting clips under the car have some play which is allowing the connectors to move around, I'm gonna see if OEM clips are still available and replace them, maybe that will do the trick?

Well, I figured out what the sound was. After checking just about everything in site under the car, I noticed that it didn’t make a noise on the usual bumpy roads under breaking, so I took off the driver side tire first where I thought the sound was coming from and at first glance everything looked normal. I first loosened the bottom caliper bolt and the caliper just about fell out of my hands, because the top bolt that the caliper pivots on was completely out! Here is a pic of the bolts…

The red arrow in the next pic indicates how I found the top bolt, the green arrow just indicates the bottom caliper bolt and where it slides through…

My pics are a little blurry so here is a pic of the web that shows it much clearer…

So obviously the top caliper bolt would stop rattling in its shaft under breaking because the caliper would squeeze the parts together. Now the car sounds and breaks like it looks, what a difference. So, it turns out Albert was right, shoulda checked the breaks first, but I hate taking off my center caps . Anyway, hope this helps someone and thanks to all those that offered their help.

Glad you found it before it found you.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

Glad you found it before it found you.

Right?! That could've been catastrophic.....