Metallic noise from top of the engine

[ESDavey]

Stopped for lunch, restarted Griff & now have a metalic sound from the top / front of the engine. Very hard to pin point but sounds like its coming from the Plenum Chamber area.

Its just started, very distinctive and does NOT appear to be effected by engine revs. I cant see anything vibrating. Any thoughts ?

[ESDavey]

Took the car into a great little garage in Madrid city centre (http://www.tallerestapia.es/) who spent 2hrs fault finding.

It appears that the starter motor gear is not fully disengaging from the flywheel tooth ring and is causing the metalic sound. I suspect a duff solenoid which is poor on a starter motor which is only 4yrs old. I will check the connections then order a new motor from Racing Green.

Anyone else had this ?

[carsy]

If its coming from the plenum, could it be a loose trumpet vibrating around. They do sometimes come loose.

[griffdude]

carsy said:

If its coming from the plenum, could it be a loose trumpet vibrating around. They do sometimes come loose.

I had this when I first bought my Griff, only 2 trumpets were properly located & the other 6 were just rolling around... Is it worth just lifting the plenum cover to take a peek?

Don't want to disprove what the garage said re the starter not disengaging, but would this not be definitely rev dependant?

[ESDavey]

Good idea ... I will get under the car later today & remove / test the starer motor. I will also check the trumpets in the plenum. Thanks for the thought

[steve-V8s]

Are your engine mounts in good condition ? if they have gone a bit droopy one or both of the exhaust manifolds can contact the chassis rails, if they are really bad one of the pulleys comes into contact with something, can’t recall what and starts grinding it away. I would have though both of those would be rev related.

A good trick is a length of pipe, hold one end near your ear and move the other end about to find the source of the noise.

[ESDavey]

Well I check the plemun & trumpets are tight. Pulled the clutch cyclinder out to get access to the starter motor bolt and look what I saw :

You can see the edge of the flywheel has been worn by the starter motor not disengaging enough - darn thing.

New standard starter motor on route - I've had enough with these new High Torque jobbies !

[Barkychoc]

The teeth on that ring gear on the flywheel aren't going to be very kind to your new starter - to do the job properly it really needs a new ring gear as well. See how it goes.

[ESDavey]

For completeness I thought I would post the conclusion. I removed the Wosp Hi Torque starter motor to find the retaining "C" clip was missing of the end of the shaft. The result was the gear wheel was being pushed back onto the shaft by the flywheel. New bog o standard starter motor fitted & all is again right with the world !


FYI, this has been the 2nd time Racing Green have posted parts to me in Europe overnight. Great service.

Edited by ESDavey on Monday 4th June 14:55