cause of loud ping sound when stopped?
 

When I'm stopped with the brakes on and the clutch in I get a loud ping sound coming from under the hood. It happens maybe every 30 seconds or something. Sounds like something gets stressed, and then releases suddenly smacking into metal, then starts getting stressed again.

Any ideas what it could be? Other than the sound everything seems perfectly normal.

You need to pop the hood and isolate the sound more carefully.

I actually did try that, and didn't hear anything for the 5 minutes I stood there. Of course, the difference is that I wasn't sitting in the car, the brakes weren't on (emergency brake was on), and the car was in neutral with the clutch pedal out. Thats what leads me to believe it has something to do with the clutch, brakes, or maybe even shocks or something.

I guess what I need to do is have somebody else sit in the car while I watch under the hood.

That's what I meant.... :)

You have the machine that goes ping?

Bwahahahahaha, monty python!

So this sounds stupid and unbelievable, but my problem turned out to be a loose strut brace. The other day I was leaning into the engine bay supporting myself on the brace and noticed it made all kinds of noise if I pushed and pulled on it. I tightened it up and sure enough, no more ping when stopped and it also solved a ticking noise that I thought was the bushings when turning at low or high speed.