Buzzing/Metal Sound..WTH Is It..?

[solaris=amazing]

Hey guys, once again i got another little twitch that my car has now-after the accident in july.

Every so often, like once a week/twice at best, when my car is sitting at idle-in PARK or neutral, i'll hear a buzzing/metalic like grating sound coming from the behind/bottom of the engine bay. It's coming from the area where the heat shields are and where the engine meets the tranny. The noise is loud enough to hear 5ft away from the car.

I first thought this could be something in the trans..like buzzing from...i don't know..? But, i honestly cannot come to a conclusion. I took it to my mechanic today, he had no time to put it on the lift, and he just guestimated.

He told me, the way i got hit in the accident (other car hitting me dead on in the drivers wheel area@30mph) could be the culprit-and most likely it's something small like the heat shields on the exhaust-there are 2 heat shields in that area. He said by now, over the coarse of 5 months if it was something major it would have gotten MUCH worse. This is the same mechanic that guessed that my other car, had a bad heat shield.-below

Why would this happen only sometimes then...? I had a bad heat shield on a 92 ford escort, and that got BAD. This problem thank god didn't get worse since july/august. One other thing, if it's in park, and it's making the noise, if i rev it alittle-to like 1300K it'll go away, then come back when it's idling normally. It sparatically disappears also, the same day it was making the noise....crazy...

PS, Whats in that area that can make that noise..? Once again, this happened ONLY after the accident.

[thunderbird muscle]

The tranny pump when running at full psi(with the epc sel. turned off will sound like that.

[solaris=amazing]

...???...

Lol, sorry man, i don't understand that. What do you mean full psi..? As in to much tranny fluid in the trans..?

Also, whats the epc sel..?

BTW, i did get my entire tranny, and torque converter drained/flushed out @ avis, and put in the mercon5. After that, like a week after, the imfamous tc shudder disappeared...good...

Then, BAM...accident....

[flewthecoupe]

Sounds like a heat shield to me...

[thunderbird muscle]

Full pressure (more then it is supposed to run at).

The epc selonoid controls the pressure basically.

If your Overdrive light isn't flashing and your is shifting hard then this isn't the problem. I was just saying what I've seen happen before to cause a buzzing sound.

[solaris=amazing]

Thanks...

I went to tccoa forums, and searched epc solenoid, buzzing, heat shield etc. It looks more and more to be my heat shield on my passenger cat-i hope so. Gonna get it on a lift to tell the full story, i'mm let you guys know.

[solaris=amazing]

Lol, to funny.

I go to the mechanic.....NOISE GONE.....

Anyway, we get it on the lift, and there is NO noise. So he gets a tiny plastic mallet, and begins to tap the exhaust lines..sure enough, it was the passenger heat shield on the cat. It was in good condition, but the upper portion was rusted and looked like it was just barely rubbing the exhaust.

So for nothing, he put on a big metal tie down to compress it. No noise so far......