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Check Engine Light - Rattling Noise from Engine

realness1978

CEG'er
Joined
Jun 14, 2002
Messages
44
Location
Rhode Island
I turned on my car today. And the check engine light was on. I heard a rattling noise coming from the engine. I opened the hood and I could hear the noise coming from the around belts area on the passenger side of the engine. I looked at the belts and I really could not tell if anything was wrong with them. I looked a little harder and I could hear the rattling noise coming from inside the plastic cover at the passenger side of the engine above the other belts. I put my hand on top of the cover and I could feel the rattling inside. I have not removed the plastic cover yet to see what’s going on inside there.

Please let me know what my issue may be and any suggestions to resolve.

Thanks
 
how long are timing belts suppose to last. if it is my timing belt this is going to be my third timing belt replacement. i just had the second one done about a year ago. the first one was done a year and half before that.

they are supposed to last anywhere between 80 and 100K miles.

Issue is, its a difficult replacement on the Zetec motor due to the terrible design of the belt, if its not installed properly, it fails early. I had this issue with my 99, a friend of mine and I installed a new belt, but we failed to loosen the cam gears (as we didnt know) and no more then 2K miles later the belt was getting chewed up because it was trying to walk off the cam gears. I had to replace it again.
 
they are supposed to last anywhere between 80 and 100K miles.

Issue is, its a difficult replacement on the Zetec motor due to the terrible design of the belt, if its not installed properly, it fails early. I had this issue with my 99, a friend of mine and I installed a new belt, but we failed to loosen the cam gears (as we didnt know) and no more then 2K miles later the belt was getting chewed up because it was trying to walk off the cam gears. I had to replace it again.

I think I am going to take it to the dealer today. Hopefully they should be able to fix this the correct way once and for all. I personally think there has to be something else going on here that is causing this belt to fail. The last time I had this done was not by the dealer. It was done by a local shop and I think he did the service using the timing belt kit from Ford because he said there were some other parts that were damaged or needed to be replaced.
 
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