Rattling on acceleration with cold engine

[Don Banfield <banfield@domain.elided>]

Hi,
	I have another mysterious (to me) problem.  When my 88 spider is
cold, there's a knocking associated with the engine's motion that sounds
like its something thumping against the firewall or the exhaust or the oil
pan guard.  It gets stronger on accelerations and decelerations, and
eventually mostly goes away once the engine warms up.

	The mystery is that the engine doesn't seem to be hitting the
exhaust, the firewall, or the oil pan guard.  At least not while the car
is sitting still.... they're a bit too hard for me to check while I'm
accelerating the car.  It's not like they are really all that close to
touching either (except maybe the oil pan guard).

	I've noticed that the shifter wiggles a bit when I put torque
through to the tranny upon releasing the clutch, but then that too stops
wiggling pretty much once the clutch is fully let out.

	Has anyone else had this kind of thing before?  Have I just
described exact symptoms of something you recognize?  e.g., motor or
tranny mounts being bad?   I have't had anything like the FI air intake
hose coming off or the fan blowing blades that people usually describe as
the symptoms of bad motor mounts.  Actually to qualify that, the radiator
has marks of previous blade impacts, and a single fan blade was missing
when I bought the car, but I replaced the fan, and the front edges of the
blades aren't abraded now after almost a year of driving.... so it seems
like no more engine shifting toward radiator....


	Suggestions?

Don Banfield

Don Banfield					Senior Research Associate
banfield@domain.elided                   Cornell University Astronomy
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided