This morning while driving to work I stoped for my morning cup of coffee like always. But this time when I pulled into the parking lot the engine started to make an awfull growling noise. I got out of the car to listen to it and it sounded more like gears not meshing properly rather than some sort of berrings. I suspect that it could be the timing gear but I'm not sure because after I killed the engine and restarted it I haven't heard it again. Any other possible causes? My lifters are shot and therfor I am pretty sure that my cam has a good bit of wear so if I replace the timing gear I will want to also do the cam and lifters while I'm at it. But I wasn't really wanting to do all of this right now. So I hope that it is something less expensive.

Thad
Seattle, WA

Just to update this post. The car has never made the noise again since that morning. It has been driven many times with no problems. I had just taken the car on a 500 mile nonstop drive the day before I heard the noise. Should I be worried now, or should I just be glad that it stoped making the noise?

Thad
Seattle,WA

Years ago I had something similar happen with our 122, with about 1000 miles on a fresh motor rebuild. As I pulled up to a stop light, a horrible growling/grinding sound suddenly started, accompanied by lots of vibration.

As soon as the light changed, I pulled off the road and stopped the motor. I looked around under the hood for a good while and could see nothing wrong. The motor started normally and the noise and vibration were gone.

I put another 80,000 miles on that motor with no repeat of the problem, and as far as I know it's now still doing fine powering Shayne's mom's 140.

I never did figure it out. The best guess I have is that something hard lodged between the oil pan and crossmember, and fell out when I stopped the motor.

May you be similarly lucky...

Change the oil. Look carefully at the drained oil for metal bits. Cut open the old oil filter and look for metal bits. Be very pessimistic about the long term viability of your engine if you find some.