98 GT.


Recently I started hearing a rattling noise under the engine when at idle. When I open up the hood, I can't hear it. I can only hear it if I only look under the car. Sometimes there is no noise, sometimes it is not as loud.


I know for sure that I have one or several motor mounts going bad as I hear a clunking noise sometimes when I shift gears. I am just wondering if bad motor mounts can cause rattling?


The engine does not vibrate or move from one place to another when accelerating. I can't hear the noise when driving in the car.


Finally, could bad motor mounts cause subtle misfire like surges when driving in certain gears/ RPM ranges?

 

Check all the heat shields first, they are usually the culprit for
rattles under the car.

Motor mounts will not cause misfires.

You do not have several motor mounts, two, and one trans mount. The motor
will twist if one of the motor mounts are bad.

Clunking could be the differential, universal joints, or transmission.

I had a rattle on another car, and it was the heat shield; broke at the bolt and
was making the noise at the break, the motor was vibrating on it.

 

 

I went under the car and the pice pictured above was loose. I know it is bad a pic but I did not have much clearance to take a better pic. It is mounted on the side of the transmission across from the 02 sensor on the driver side. I touched it and it was wiggling a bit. I don't know what it is so I did not try to remove it. No bolts are holding it.
What is it?

 

Hard to get a sense of where you were pointing the camera there, but the first thing that comes to mind is maybe this is a close-up of the clutch fork cover?

 

Yeah, I looked up how that cover looks like and yeah, that is the one. Can it cause the rattling?

 

If it's loose, yeah. Did you check the heat shields?

 

I could not find any. I googled them and I could not find anything that looks like a heat shield in that area.