Adjust your transfercase shift lever.

 

I am having the exact same clacking noise coming from the same area. My engine runs great, but this noise is driving me loco! The noise occurs when idling, when accelerating from a stop, and is very noticable in reverse. The clacking sound seems to be coming from the bell housing area where the engine and trans mates.

Tranny shifts fine, and I have a 2WD so no pulling up on the 4X4 lever for me.

 

Everyone here is going to tell you it is your flexplate, or your harmonic balancer. More than likely it is the flexplate, probably broken or just very loose. Its best to check it now before it comes apart at high speed and breaks lots of other stuff.

 

what i dont really know is how to check to see if the flexplate bolts are loose. Mine is doing the same thing and when i took the inspection plate off i coulnd't really access or even see the bolts. Any ideas guys?

 

thanks for the leads, I will run with them. I am going to change the harmonic balancer (crank pulley) since it's easy/cheap, and I will start researching the flexplate. If is easy as well that will be replaced as well.

My theory is if you go through the effort to inspect a cheap part on a 10+ year old vehicle, just replace the part. It will probably need to be replaced one day anyway!

Now if I could only figure out how to apply this theory to wives and kids.....

 

not to steel your thread but any quick fix for this noise

sorry i didnt realize there were two pages and my ? was answered

 

Follow-up....

My "clacking" sound is gone! I removed the starter/inspection plate and checked the bolts, 3 out of the 4 bolts were so loose they could have been removed by hand. I tightened them all (not to spec) and put everything back together.

My 3/8th drive torque wrench only went up to 75 ft/lb so I will be doing this all over again next weekend with a torque wrench capable of tightening the flexplate bolts down to factory spec (105 ft/lb).

I plan on taking pictures and making a tech article, if this is such a common issue with XJ's I am surprised that someone hasn't already made a tech article out of it. (I searched various sites and could not find one)

 

i would take a long one peic socket ext or enen a solid peic of round stock sbout the same size,what you wanna do is put it to ur ear and place the other end where u think the noise is comeing from. thats a really cheap mechanics stethiscope. it works dan near every time. i hate to see some one just start throwing money and tim away for no reson. if u have a harbor freight tool store or any auto parts store useally has one, there around ten bucks.

 

WOw that is awesome that you fixed that so easily. how did you access the bolts, was it on the bottorm or more up where the starter goes? did they look loose or did you have to put a wrench on them to find out? how did you keep the engine from turning while u tightened them?

Please any information would be so helpful thanks.

 

I have a 1996 4.0 I6, with a AW4 trans.

To access your flexplate bolts do the following:

1) Jack up your front axle, and stabilize using jack stands (I have a 5.5" lift and did not have to jack up the vehicle to complete this task)

2) Disconnect the negative battery terminal on your battery

3) Remove the front starter mounting bolt (circled)


3) Remove rear starter mounting bolt (black bolt circled)


Once you have removed the two starter mounting bolts just remove and tuck the starter away among the front suspension. You will see the flexplate through the hole where the starter was mounted, this is where you will use a pipe, or large flat head screwdriver to move the flexplate later on.

4) Remove the flexplate inspection panel bolts/nuts. The lower drivers side bolt may not come out due to the downpipe, this is OK as the flexplate should have a cutout to accommodate for this (at least mine did)


(See the bolt head in relation to the downpipe on the left side)


(this the 4th bolt on the drivers side of the bell housing, the nut/bolt you see on the right is the same one on the left in the pic above this one)

Once all of the bots/nuts are removed from the inspection plate it will come right out, you may need to maneuver it around to get it out but it will come out fairly easy.

Now you can see the flexplate, and the flexplate nuts. You can access each bolt by manually turning the flexplate with a piece of pipe or large flat head screwdriver against the teeth through the starter mounting hole. Use any combination of extensions and/or universal joints needed to access the flexplate bolts.

I don't have pics of the last part as I just ran outside and took these pics for you. Next weekend when I redo this and tighten the bolts to spec (105 ft/lbs) I will take pics to go along with the last paragraph.

Good luck!