baren

Hello everyone I have a 2001 Jeep Cherokee with roughly 145k miles on it. Yesterday started her up and while idling the jeep was making a sound similar to that of when kids put cards in their bike spokes. When accelerating or revving the engine the sounds gets quite a bit worse. I had noticed a noise about two days prior to this, but it didn't sound anything like this and I didn't think much of it.

My first thought was that it was a cracked head since I do have the notorious 0331 head. I inspected the oil level and checked to see if coolant was in it. Everything looked normal. After having a few friends look at it their first guesses were a lifter or maybe even a intake manifold leak.

I ended up bringing it to a shop they checked to make sure the torque converter bolts were tight which they were. I left the jeep with them and they are going to pull the filter off inspect that for flakes. If the filter checks out they are gonna drop the pan and check the rods and bearings.

Basically my questions are what does this sound like to you how much do you think a shop would charge me. (They are charging me for 3 hours of labor $88 to drop the pan and another $88 if I want it put back on) At this point I'm assuming its gonna be bad and best case scenario is to find a new engine and find someone to drop it in for me.

Thanks