• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

99 CSVT Grinding or Rattle Noise Problem!!!!

cruzzin

New CEG'er
Joined
Mar 8, 2007
Messages
5
I have a 99 CSVT with around 65,000 miles on it. When i start the car up from cold when its been sitting overnight i get a grinding or rattle noise as the car idles down, but stops when its at normal idle. Car doesn't make the noise if the clutch is pushed in. When i put the car into first or reverse and the clutch just engages at low rpms i get that same noise. Once the car starts to go and the rpm's get above 1,500 it seems to go away. If i keep the rpm's over 1,500 and engage i don't really get the rattle. Anybody know what this might be? maybe a throw out bearing, timing chain? pressure plate? please help because i have no idea
 
It's almost certainly normal gear rollover noise. I don't know how familiar you are with transmissions, but when you're in neutral with the clutch engaged, the gears are still spinning, and in ANY gear, all the transmission gears are still meshed and turning. There's a little play in the meshing of the teeth which causes noise at low RPM. It sounds like a quiet rattle.
 
To add to my previous post, reverse has a separate idle gear that slides in to reverse the direction of the output. Because this gear needs to "slide in" between other gears, the reverse gears need to be straight cut, or spur gears as opposed to helical (teeth cut at an angle so that they mesh more gradually). This also causes a whirring noise in reverse.
 
To add to my previous post, reverse has a separate idle gear that slides in to reverse the direction of the output. Because this gear needs to "slide in" between other gears, the reverse gears need to be straight cut, or spur gears as opposed to helical (teeth cut at an angle so that they mesh more gradually). This also causes a whirring noise in reverse.


except these cars have a sycronized reverse gear, hense the reverse lock out and no griding to get it into reverse as you often get with straight cut gears ...
 
I appreciate all the responses. I am not that familiar with transmissions but i can see where that might be the cause. Is this something i should be worried about and fix? And what all would i need.

It definately doesn't make much noise in reverse...the problem is very quiet, only sometimes does it get loud in neutral or first gear. i just hope its nothing major, the car still runs and drives smoothly, just hear that noise.
 
have you ever changed the mtx fluid? if not I might not be a bad idea. make sure you use either the Ford "Honey" or Syncromax by Royal Purple ...
 
i don't think it has been changed ever, i was gonna try that, probably get the ford "Honey" and see what happens. I haven't had the car very long
 
a guy at work looked at it with me at lunch and he thought it might be the flywheel and something hitting against the pressure plate. I guess its more of a rattle than a grind. In which case im probably ok....does anyone think this could be the case?
 
well if its a rattle how are the heat shields .... hte pressure plate is bolted to the flywheel so I don't understand how it could be hitting the fly wheel .... so on that point also try bleeding the clutch
 
i can try to bleed the clutch. i thought that maybe the springs on the pressure plate aren't releasing causing a metal to metal contact, thus creating the rattle. could that be possible? :shrug:
 
The only way you can have metal to metal contact between the flywheel and the pressure plate is if someone forgot to install the clutch disk! :crazy:
Karl
 
Same problem

Same problem

I've got a 99 mystique and I've got the same problem. Rattle tattle tattle, when the clutch is engaged (the pedal is released) and silent when it is disengaged. Fortunately this problem has disappeared with my new problem- can't engage 1st or 2nd gear!!! Damnit!

I'll ask my mechanic tomorrow, about the noise that it!!
 
Back
Top