Annoying Rattle

[scribsac]

I drive a 2000 Explorer Sport 4x4 with the SOHC 4.0L. When I accelerate from a standstill I hear a slight rattle coming from under the hood right at 1500 RPM. Once I get past 2000-2500 RPM the rattle usually goes away. It does not sound like it's coming from the engine, but I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue and could give me a hint as to what it could be.

 

[TPLYNCH]

Check the heat shields around your catalytic converters. They come loose and rattle.

 

[scribsac]

You know, the noise sounds like it is coming from inside of the dashboard. It's not a metallic ring, more like hard plastic vibrating very rapidly. I almost would assume that something has fallen down into the defrost vents. I have spent a lot of time listening for the source and it is neither under the hood nor can I hear it with the windows down. The only time I hear it (which is basically all the time) is when the truck is in drive and the RPM are 1500 to 2500. But what doesn't make sense is that I don't hear a thing when I am in park or neutral. Strange.

 

[MDPuckett84]

Have you had the timing chain tensioner fix? Usually its at alittle higher rpms but i suppose anything is possible.

 

[mydland89]

that is wierd,. I had a similar rattle that bugged the crap outta me, turned out that the sheild on my muffler was loose causing the noise.....it was ripped off and now my truck runs quiet again...

and.....this is the wierdest......I used to get a tranny code..well to make it short, I now work at a college that teaches motorsports, and auto repair....they have all kinds of lifts (over 20), and scanning tools and all kinds of neat stuff if you like working on your own cars....well I tried to get the o/d light to flash as it usually does when driving in NO OVERDRIVE....and now it wont do it....just wondering if the rattle or (vibration) caused the tranny to shoot the code......probably not but, hoping it is.....got access to a scan tool and it wont shoot the code.....just my luck....

 

[scribsac]

I finally just ended up taking my Xplorer into the Ford dealer since I have an extended warranty. The closest I could guess as to the location of the rattle was the exhaust manifold. However, get this: The Ford dealer says that it was a wrongly routed throttle cable! They just rerouted it and now things are fine. Beat that!