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I also find I idle roughly but only when I am stopped for a light or something,but it seems normal while driving, as well on the cold mornings when I first turn it on there seems to be small knocking under the passenger side of the hood.



These two things are I think, if not 'normal' then common idiosyncracies of Contours. I am going out on a limb to guess you have the 4-cyl (Zetec) engine and the auto trans. The steering wheel shakes a lot when you are idling in Drive, right? If you shift to N it goes away. I had the dealership do something about this while under warranty, they installed some kind of retrofit kit that I don't remember what it was all about but I'm pretty sure it's the kind of thing you don't bother with if you're out of warranty. Shouldn't cause any other problems just an irritation.

The clackety clack on cold morning under the hood i'm guessing is the timing belt. They are known to slap against the upper plastic cover on cold starts. You can access the cover (on the passenger end of the valve cover) without taking anything else off - it's held on by two bolts and you can add extra washers under the cover to increase the clearance a bit above the belt. In fact you can take the cover off and run the engine that way to see if that's what the noise is.

If I have guessed wrong about your engine/trans then let us know what you are driving and you might get more opinions.


'95 Contour GL, Zetec/ATX Repairs: * wheel bearings * sway bar stop * CV joint * alternator * shift interlock * heater tube * VSS * tensioner * ingition coil * wire harnesses * ball joint * Why do I still love it?