Metalic sounding rattle noise when accelerating

[kenny1773]

It sounds to me like it may be a heat shield vibrating (similar sound anyway) but I can't find it. Does anyone have a diagram of where the heat shields are on a 2007? I see the one under the van that would be about right under the passenger front seat, that one is not the problem. It sounds more it is coming from inside the engine bay (only I can't tell from where, left or right is impossible to determine by sound).

The noise occurs when the gas pedal is pushed (does not matter how far or how hard) even while parked.

The noise is worse while under load and actually in motion. While in motion the noise happens when the gas pedal is first pushed, then stops. As many time as I was on/off the gas, it was consistent. While doing about 25-30mph, if I SLIGHTLY press the gas pedal down, the rattle was fairly constant (or lasted much longer than any other time).

The only info I got from my wife was that she went down some long gravel road recently (roughly just before the noise) she said she went slow.

The only other thing I could think of was maybe several small rocks where stuck in a heat shield or something, but I could see any or hear any when I banged on the heat shield while parked and I crawled under the van.

________

Short story, there is a metalic rattle sound every time I hit the gas (happens for a second) at any speed. I hear it while parked and hitting the gas, but the sound is louder under load and in motion.

Any ideas?

Wife has put 1000 miles on the van with it making this noise, MPG and everything else seem perfectly fine. No lights on. The sound it just worrying me.

[ejsmall]

There is a heat shield over the exhaust manifold on the front of the engine. Tight down between the radiator and engine. If like mine the bottom mount rusted away and the shield began to vibrate against the manifold. I reached down with a long pry bar and pulled it away a bit. Quiet ever since.

[kenny1773]

ejsmall

I got a few minutes to get my hand down on that one in front and tried my hardest to move it in any direction and it did not move.

I found a youtube vid that sounds exactly like my problem, looks like I need to pull the wheel (not sure which side yet though)



What you hear in that vid is exactly what I hear when I hit the accelerator pedal

[kenny1773]

If anyone cares, I got around to looking much more closely at this today and it was indeed the front half of the heat shield on the front of the engine, right behind the radiator fan. The area of the shield where the bottom two bolts connect it rusted through and only the bottom half was loose. It took some really hard pulling on it to figure out this part of the shield was even loose.

I managed to get a ratchet/socket on the top bolts from the top and loosen them, pulled the front half of the heat shield up out of the top of the engine (really tight fit). Put the bolts back to hold the back half on there still (the back half looked ok, so I just left it)

I assume it is ok to run the van without this part there from various things I read on the web (and on this forum) so I am just leaving it like this and will see what happens.

I could have done the clamp method to wrap a clamp around it and hold it tight, but I don't want to deal with anymore after today