About a week ago I started my truck up and it had a weird chattering sound at at idle. When Im driving down the road it sounds normal except for certain RPM's the chatter comes back, although its not as loud as it is at idle. My water pump had a slight leak in it a month ago (just stoped leaking after 3 days) so Im not sure if that has something to do with it or not. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Torque converter and/or broken flex plate.

 

Idle-tension pulley ? If he's lucky?

 

i hate to point it out and im sorry for it, but have you checked your oil

 

Have you pulled your belt and spun everything? Checked all the basics?

 

The last time I had a chatter at idle it was kind of a clicking or tapping sound. Pulled my valve covers and checked my injector hold-down bolts. Almost every one was loose and tightened them down. The noise went away. It may not be your problem like me, but it's a free check (all it cost me was a beer).

I don't remember the spec's, but there's plenty of posts if you search for it (I'm on a ship and my connectivity is worse than dial-up otherwise I would link it for you).

Best of luck.

 

Yes I did. It was the first thing I checked and it was a little low, maybe a quart low. So I filled it up and the noise still continued...

Not yet. I planned on doing that today.

Thanks, Ill do a search on that and see what I can come up with

 

Just an update. The tourque converter checks out, the turbo is good and all the pulleys check out. Im going to pull the valve covers and check the injector hold down bolts next.

 

What oil weight are you using and is it 'cold' where you are?

Check the injector bolts and the rocker arm bolts also.

look this thread over. Post #6 has the bolt torque info.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...lve-cover.html

 

Did you pull the transmission out and make sure the flex plate is not cracked?

 

I'll throw one in, when you had the belt off, did you grab the fan and try to wiggle it up and down? If it moves up and down, ... a water pump is on the horizon.

 

First off lemme say Chris, long time brother!

I dont know if your still in florida or where you are, but I have had a similar thing happen. What my problem was is I had some ice stuck in SOMEWHERE after doing some deep snow driving, and what fixed my problem is I brought my truck into my shop and let it thaw right out.

 

Im using 5w-40 rotella syn. Ive run it for years and havent had any problems.
Its been anywhere from 15-50 degrees since this started.

Thanks for the link.

No I dont have the means to really do that but im going to get an inspection mirror and see if I can see it any better. We checked it out the best we could though.

Just replaced the water pump on mon.

Hey man how have you been?

No Im back in Maryland now. I dont think it would be from ice, its been warm enough a few days where it would have melted everything

 

I bet an injector hold down is loose as someone mentioned. I would remove valve covers and check/torque them. Especially with variance across rpm/vibration. Easy fix and easy to check.

 

Flex plate is broken, we re checked it after everything else checked out ok and found out it was actually broken.