Rep Power: 0

1991 Honda Civic LX w/approx. 131K miles.

Got home from work last night and when I pulled into the driveway I heard a loud rattling noise coming from the engine compartment. When I lifted the hood the noise appeared to be coming from the engine block.

I let it sit overnight, then checked the oil this morning before I cranked it. The oil level is fine, and in fact it's slightly above the top mark (hole) in the dipstick. I just had the oil changed about 3 weeks ago. This morning when I cranked it, it made only a slight rattling noise, so I drove it around the neighborhood for a mile a so and the noise went away. I decided to risk driving it to work this morning (about 12 miles from home) and by the time I got to work the engine was purring like a kitten. No sign of a noise.

Any ideas about what I was hearing? A bearing about to go? Timing belt? Loose heat shield? Not sure about how to troubleshoot this one.

Reverend Rick

 
Rep Power: 811

could be a torn front engine mount.

 
Rep Power: 0

Thanks gb, I'll check out the front mount.

 
Rep Power: 0

Okay - I just updated another of my posts on the forums regarding my Check Engine light coming on. Turns out it was a bad distributor. The mechanic who replaced the distributor said the bad distributor had metal parts down inside of it like it had started to come apart. It's a wonder the car would run at all!

Now I'm wondering if the bad distributor was making the rattling noise when it started to disintegrate from the inside.