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1993 Corolla accelerating clunking sounds


sharkfan1781110
04-18-2012, 09:59 PM
Hey everyone,
First time posting on here so I hope I break as little rules I don't know about as possible.

A little background on the car:
I have a 1993 Toyota Corolla with 207K+ miles on it. Only getting oil changes and watching fluid levels at this point for past 50K+ miles. I've changed tires as needed, and breaks are still ok. Until my last fill-up still getting 27MPGs out of it so I think the engine is fine. Starter/radiator changed a few years ago. No other major work done at all.

My problem:
My car was totally fine until about a day or two ago and it has already gotten noticeably worst. I did go in a pretty big dip a couple days ago and I have a feeling that may have broken something or knocked something loose in the engine area. This is an old fragile car...haha. At this point though I'm not really concerned with what caused it, I'm trying to see if I can fix it myself, spend less than $200, or figure out if I need to retire the car. Engine still mostly sounds fine but if I had to describe it, the engine definitely sounds like it has gotten noticeably worst in the past few days. It's still running strong (going 60+ on freeways) and sounds mostly ok but just slightly different and in a worst way. A little louder? A little "older"? Not quiet sure how to describe it.

Anyways, back to the noise. When I am accelerating I hear a weird clunking noise on the right side of the car. That is if you were looking down into the hood it's to your right. It be on the driver's side. I'm not sure how car-talk correctly would refer to its left and rights...haha. It happens pretty much every time now when accelerating uphill from a stop. It happens on some normal light accelerations and it sounds a little odd when making turns/accelerating. It kinda feels like the car is trying to do something and it can't. That's the best way to describe it I guess. I don't think it's the belts because it doesn't happen if the car is not moving or accelerating (I listened to it idling and it sounded alright). ALTHOUGH, I have some new vibrations that are appearing at higher speeds.

Things I've done is I looked at all the fluids they are ok. HOWEVER, there is a slight amount of fluid around the area where the belts are on the left side. The under-car engine protector plastic piece thingy in that area under which sits under the belts looked like it has fresh liquid. But as I mentioned the noise seems to come mainly from the opposite side, the driver's side area so I donno if that is helpful in this situation. Also as I said I went in a pretty big dip in an area I didn't know at like 20mph so I feel like I may have done damage to the entire underbelly of the car.

I'm definitely thinking about taking the car to the mechanics but I really also wanna consider fixing it all myself. I mean it's an old car and I really don't want this little thing to be how it goes out. It still wants to run it just needs some TLC this coming weekend...hah

So in summary:
-went in dip
-now car makes clunking noise on driver side while accelerating (most noticeable uphill)

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