Help - Clunking noise when cranking engine

[camryfreak]

93 camry finally has a clunking noise (like metal hitting against each other) when cranking the engine. Engine @ 160K miles
The car moves and shifts good but has a clunking noise - I guess the engine is gone? There's oil in the engine, also oil in tranny. Shortly after cranking the engine, the noise stops on idling, but when you step on the gas, the noise continues.
I don't know what's wrong with it. I had a previous problem of interface gasket between main engine/tranny but couldn't fix it due to outrageous auto mechanic bills. However the oil leaks were almost negligible. I do NOT think its related to this current problem since I still have oil properly gauged in the engine and tranny.

I'm thinking I need to buy a used engine so I can do a swap. Any hope for this engine?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

[yotatechie04]

It sounds to me like it's a rod knocking...if this is the case, you won't need to replace the whole engine, it would probably be way cheaper to rebuild it. If you're quite knowledgeable about engines and your car, then I'd say go ahead, get a hoist and stand, rip that engine out of there and rebuild it. The only thing you'd probably need to do is replace the pistons and do some maintenance on the block itself. If you'd like any further help or information, let me know.

[camryfreak]

Sounds like a good idea, however I do NOT know about engines, nor do I have any place to teardown/rebuild the engine.
BTW I have searched on the NET for "Camry Pistons", "cylinder block", "lower half engines" etc. to no avail, have any ideas as to where to look?

You've been a tremendous help to this forum.

[yotatechie04]

All right, I understand that fact of not having the resources to do a teardown and rebuild, whether it be lack of facilities, lack of tools, or lack of proper equipment, not all of us have an auto shop in our backyard. ( I know I really wished I did. ) So when it comes to searching online, I guess if you're willing to pay for shipping and such, you could always go to eBay and search for your engine size, whether it be a 5SFE (4 Cylinder) or 1MZ-FE (6 Cylinder) and it's bound to bring up something. Other than that, if you're like me and don't feel like paying for outrageous shipping and such, just call up all the junkyards in your area. I'm such a junkyard freak when it comes to parts I can't get anywhere else that I've travelled over 200 miles to get a part...pretty sad, I know, but if you know your stuff, and what you're looking for, you can get what you need at a fair price, and in decent condition. Also, you might want to go to http://www.partsamerica.com/ and check out their pistons and connecting rods and see what they have. I know they have all kinds of parts online. (It's the people who supply Advance Auto Parts.) So they have a pretty decent selection. By the way, you'll probably either want to look into getting either a whole other engine from a junkyard and just change out some of your parts from your old one, or just find the actual block itself from somewhere, but then if you did that you would have to pull the engine, and rebuild it. But as far as finding parts go, my best advice to you would be to call up all kinds of junkyards, they have quite a bit of good stuff, you've just got to know where to look. If you need any further help, let me know.

BTW: Thanks for your compliment. I appreciate it when someone actually says something good about the advice that I give, and I really love to help people with their cars. Cars are my life, and it makes me feel good at the end of the day to know that I've helped someone else. But I'm not the only one who gives a tremendous amount of help on the forums, there are plenty of other users who help just as much as I do, like Brian R. for example, he's got to be one of the most helpful people on this forum, and there are plenty others, but I think Brian's posted the most out of us all.