Drove to the track last week and made a few test passes then drove it home with no issues that I could tell. A day later I started it up and there was a terrible mechanical noise at idle. Not consistent in frequency, just random noise that would come and go, similar like metal hitting something. Laying under the car with it running my best guess would be the noise is coming from the flexplate/converter area. Above idle it seems to go away or can't be heard though the car is very quiet.
I checked the engine thrust bearing clearance with a dial indicator and it measured what I would expect (.008"). I confirmed the flexplate to converter bolts were tight and best I can tell the flexplate to crank bolts are tight. The flexplate was new when the transmission was installed and it's a very hefty unit so I don't suspect it's cracked though I can't verify with everything still assembled.
I am starting to suspect a fin broke loose in the torque converter. I do know everything transmission related to the transmission on the datalogger (transmission temps, main line and converter discharge pressure) all are what were expected on every run. I did pull the tranny pan magnetic drain plug to see what it looked like. It did have some metal on the magnet which they always do but it appears it might have more slivers than I would normally expect. The picture is below and is after I cleaned it somewhat trying not to remove any of the metal.
The transmission is a PG new a year ago with 139 runs on it and the torque converter was new at the same time. It's a PTC bolt together unit that has performed fine and I didn't see any abnormal slip on any of the 4 runs at the track.
I guess my question is this - Has anyone ever had a converter fin fail that showed up as an audible noise?
![Image]()
I checked the engine thrust bearing clearance with a dial indicator and it measured what I would expect (.008"). I confirmed the flexplate to converter bolts were tight and best I can tell the flexplate to crank bolts are tight. The flexplate was new when the transmission was installed and it's a very hefty unit so I don't suspect it's cracked though I can't verify with everything still assembled.
I am starting to suspect a fin broke loose in the torque converter. I do know everything transmission related to the transmission on the datalogger (transmission temps, main line and converter discharge pressure) all are what were expected on every run. I did pull the tranny pan magnetic drain plug to see what it looked like. It did have some metal on the magnet which they always do but it appears it might have more slivers than I would normally expect. The picture is below and is after I cleaned it somewhat trying not to remove any of the metal.
The transmission is a PG new a year ago with 139 runs on it and the torque converter was new at the same time. It's a PTC bolt together unit that has performed fine and I didn't see any abnormal slip on any of the 4 runs at the track.
I guess my question is this - Has anyone ever had a converter fin fail that showed up as an audible noise?
