406oc.co.uk

I have a bloody awful 'rattle' around the back of the engine (2.litre petrol EW). It sounds like its from this area but not totally certain as the sound travels so much. Could it be a broken up cat? The rattle sounds like you have a stone rattling around on a tin plate under there somewhere. On acceleration it kicks in bad but quietens substantially on off throttle. I've heard about a manifold rattle but can't find anything on here about it. Any help, please?

Hmm... Could be the cat disintegrating if it's coming from the manifold end. Is the exhaust blowing at all? The only other fault I've come across is the flexible joint going to pot although I can't see that making a rattling noise (I will have changed this on both my 406's come this weekend )

Flexible joint!

I had a really bad rattle on mine, got worse as time went on. I thought it was the cat breaking up and removed it and found the cat was fine. If you look in the downpipe/cat it splits into two sections, On mine the sections had a small piece of metal bent over it which was rattling around. Pulled it off, no more annoying rattle!

If you do decide to remove the cat, buy a new exhaust fitting kit before hand (£12ish). You will probably have to cut the old bolts/springs off as they are usually crusty mothers.

Dan

Thanks for that advice. I'm taking the car to my local small garage next week so I'll ask him to take the front pipe/cat off and have a look for that metal thingy! Doesn't half make a bloody noise though. Sounds like Steptoe and Son are driving up the road

'arold!