Exhaust rattle - solved

[halbe01]

Hi all,

I've mentioned before about my annoying rattle and how the various fixes had yet to resolve it - we'll I'm pleased to report that it's now finally gone (touch wood). The rattle was a metallic clanking/clanging noise which only happend at specific revs 1400 then again at 2000-2100ish. It was intermittent and often (but not always) went away after 20 minutes of driving. It came from under the car somewhere and was loud enough to be embarrassing as you pull away at the lights - every single time.

Anyway, turns out the noise was do do with the exhaust manifold. Apparently the manifold has two skins and the outer and inner ones were hitting each other - or something along those lines (I'm no mechanic - just going on what the garage said) so rather than replace both manifolds at huge cost, they took them all apart and did a bit of judicious welding. Job done - no more rattle.

I'm told the garage have already done this on other cars since they discovered it on mine - so mine wasn't a one-off issue. So anyone out there with an annoying rattle coming from under the car somewhere - theres something to get checked.

Cheers
Ben.

 

[Parisien]

Thanks for that Ben....great to hear you finally got it tracked down and sorted!

Many more happy miles to follow am sure!!


P

 

[conaero]

Well done Ben always very satiafying when you finally get them fixed.

Can you tell us who the garage were, they obviously know their onions!

 

[halbe01]

It was Autofficina in Chessington - I started using them because they are very local, and I continue to use them because they do seem to know what they're doing. Also because they always have a lot of nice Ferraris of varying ages in the workshop so I can play 'what model is that one' as I walk through and plan what I might get one day...

 

[conaero]

Did they have to take the engine out to remove the manifolds, or lift it off it's mounts?

 

[halbe01]

They talked about dropping the exhaust down, no mention of moving the engine at all. And at 7 hours labour during which they also did a few other things for me that sounds a little quick for an engine-out job perhaps?

 

[conaero]

I think you jack the engine up 6 to 12 inches off its mounts to get the manifolds clear. 7 hrs seems very reasonable.

 

[Elliott653]

I have that EXACT problem. It goes once the engine warms up. Or, as I now know thanks to this thread, when the manifolds warm.

Thanks!

 

[conaero]

My Alfa GTV 3.2 used to do the same from new. I got fobbed off and told it was nothing.