I was driving back from the beach and I got caught in traffic and heard a loud clicking noise coming from my hood. I pull over and it sounds like its coming from the belt on the left side of my engine. When the car revs it makes a louder and faster clicking/tapping noise. What should I do? I am 30 miles from home...

 

Is it safe for me to drive the rest of the way home at a slow speed?

 

Boss, I would look over the belt and see if you can see any damage to the belt. Odds are, what you are hearing is part of the belt shredding and it is tapping the firewall or some other body part. If it is the belt, I would say to drive the car home the 30 miles, but keep the engine RPMs down as much as possible. The faster you spin the engine, the more stress the belt is going to see. Kinda like you should try to minimize the load on the alternator (ie, turn every off electrical possible except those necessary things). If it is a metallic tapping sound, that is a tough one to say drive the car home or not. Probably fine to drive it, but at the same time, without hearing it or knowing that it is coming from a specific location, a simple fix could be made very expensive with a drive like you have left.

 

It is not metallic sound I'll check the belt. Thank you for the quick response

 

My oil light is flashing when I press the break and the clicking sound has not gone away even though I put a whole bottle of oil in I think it's an oil leek

 

Boss, at this point, any damage has been done. Drive it home keeping things sane and deal with what you have at that point. Based on what I am reading, you have either a bad oil sender or your oil pump is toast and what damage is going to occur has already occurred.

 

Check your oil level before adding more oil. You may have a leak, but only checking level will tell for sure. It sounds like a belt in the process of shredding as Thermo said. Drive it carefully, and keep an eye on the temp gauge. If you get a CEL on top of all of this, stop and call for a tow. Let us know how things work out.

 

I made it home safely. My girlfriends uncle is a mechanic and he's going to come over to my house later this evening. I'll let you guys know how everything goes. Thanks for the help and support.

 

Brought it to a mechanic whom my family have been going to for years. He said its the motor.

Am I screwed ?

 

What do you mean by screwed? $500 fix, I don't think so. Odds are, you are looking at having to replace the motor. So, you can probably plan on spending around $2000 to have a used motor put into the car ($750 or so for the motor, another $1200 or so in install).

It kinda sounded like it was the oil pump starting to go. But, by the time I was reading about it, the motor had run for a bit and odds are any more damage probably wasn't going to happen. Hence why I said to make your way home.

Smile, stuff like this happens. See what you can find in the way of a used motor and go from there. May be worthwhile to look on E-bay or the like and see what you can find. never know what you may run across. Just check with your mechanic first to make sure he will be willing to install a motor like this. Some will, some won't. Some will install it, but not make any promises about how long the motor will last.

 

The mechanic is asking friends some who own junk yards to see if they can get me an engine similar with relatively close miles (just hit 64k on the day of the incident)

Here is a video. I just posted it so it may take a few minutes to upload

 

It sounds to me like the crank mains/big ends have run.
Not good news.
I don't know this engine but maybe a regrind + new bearing shells (plus a new oil pump) would fix it.
Someone on this forum will know.

 

Ya, sounds like a rod-knock to me. I wouldn't be surprise if you spun a bearing. The chances of saving that motor are slim.

As other has said, begin looking for replacement engine. I'd suggest to start by looking for a motor out of a Lincoln LS, which is probably way more plentiful here in the US.

As others have said, its the same motor and is basically a straight replacement, although you will have to use certain parts off your original motor. This has been thoroughly covered in other posts to the list.
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Jaguar: Grace, Pace, and Space - Sir William Lyons

 

Thank you guys for your help