98 mazda millenia 2.5l engine ticking

I just received this car and it has a ticking noise.

It seems like it goes away between 2k - 3k rpm's.

I went to drive it the other day and I heard something break,
then the charge battery light came on.

I found out that the harmonic balancer cracked,
and thats what caused the battery light to come out.

We replaced that with a new one hoping that it would fix the sound we had heard.

It didn't help that sound any.

Does anyone have any ideas what it may be?

this car has around 107,000 miles on it. Thx for your help guys ;)

by the way it drives fine, the noise is just excessively loud.

Does anyone want to take a wild guess, as to what the problem could be? I have the car in the shop, but I'm getting impatient for them to find out what is wrong. I want to take it on vacation.

Most 2.5's have a problem with the HLA's (hydraulic lash adjusters) I have a 93 Probe GT with a 2.5 and that was the problem with mine. Here's a site that might help you outhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/dorothy.bradbury/probemx/index.htm It's for MX-6's and Probes but the engines are pretty much the same. Hope that helps.

Thank you for the reply!

My mechanic found out what was wrong a few weeks ago.

It was the Hydraulic Automatic Timing Belt Tensioner,..
it was shot so it would make the clicking noise.

The part cost about $150.00