Under car cleaning leads to sudden problem

[erikvr]

Yep, so here I go and clean up my soobie's underbelly at the car wash, got the skid plate clean, oil pan, etc... . I was so proud of her clean look.

 

Then as I drove away I heard something that sounded like thwarping marbles under the hood. Open the hood and sure enough it's there. Can't really tell if it is coming from near the radiator or the distributor........

 

Did I somehow get oil on the timing belts?? Did I knock goo off the oil pump gasket and air is getting in?? I can only guess, and figured that your guesses were better than mine.

[Snowman]

Loose exhaust heat shield?

[Sweet82]

I think we have all learned a lesson about cleaning the crud off a Subaru!

 

I'd bet your Subaru liked being dirty and is now mad at you!

 

Water in the distributer cap???

 

Dry it out and try it again...

Good Luck,

Glenn

82 SubaruHummer

01 Forester

[4x4mudrat]

thwarping marbles

 

I don't get it, what's a thwarping marble? I'm from Australia eh so I'm a little sloooow....

 

Without knowing what thwarping marbles are I'm guessing that it's ingnition related, mostly that's what happens when I've washed under the hood of early model Subies. Spray everything you can with WD40 or CRC and go from there.

[KStretch55]

"Thwarping marbles"??? Danged if I know. I thought it sounded like a term our mates from down under or the land of the Kiwi would use. But, Mudrat blew that theory.

[Sweet82]

I just "Googled" for "thwarping marbles" and it came back with "funny noises Subaru's make when freshly cleaned".

 

Really!

[MorganM]

I'm confused as well so how about answering yoru question with another question

 

Did you spray under the hood into the engine comparment? Or was this washing strictly contained outside of the engine bay?

 

Maybe we can narrow down where heavy water sprays might have affected things.

[erikvr]

ok, so I did spray into the engine compartement but I covered the distributor real well. I will check to see if it is wet, though, just in case. When I went underneath, I sprayed all over, including straight up (like, I bent the hose at a 45 degree angle upwards).

 

A better way to say thwarping marbles might be some kind of regular repeating noise, not super loud like TOD. You have to listed for it with the hood closed.

 

As far as the heat shield theory, the stupid car dealer threw away the heat shield before selling me the car. And the sound is not metallic at all.

 

I will try the dist. first. Thanks

[NoahDL88]

ok i'm gonna pull at the two short straws

 

wait till its dark and start the car, see if you get visible sparks from near the wires and spark plugs, could be shorting on the puddle of water ontop of your engine

 

could have little loose rocks inside the timing belt covers, same goes for in the clutch area

 

does she run ok? cause if she seems to have power and then seems a bit doggy check the idler pully on the driver side, the one with the teeth, could have chucked a few ball bearings out of it. (true story)

[SkankinPickle]

my throw out bearing makes a noise like thwarping marbles. mybe some water got inbetween the engine and tranny from the timing hole up top or the metal plate down below.

 

try pushing in the clutch and see if it still makes the noise.