So the story goes blah blah blah on my car and after 2.5 years it's ready to go. The motor was rebuilt by a guy that started a side business with Jeff from Pettit a few years ago and has since closed its doors (hence Jeff is back at Pettit). The block is mostly new internally. It sat around for almost a year while those guys at that garage parted out my car for profit, and has sat for about a year and a half total. So here's what's going on.

It started last night, wouldn't drop below 3500 RPM so I shut it off after about a minute. There was fairly rapid internal clunking sound. I'm almost certain it's the same clunk that it makes when I turn the crank by hand with a wrench ... basically it makes an internal clunk from deep in the block, near the second rotor, and it's basically circular play.

The tranny is auto and the drive plate isn't bolted completely down to the torque convertor. The bolts are in about halfway, I'm only so strong doing this with a regular hand wrench on my back with the car on stands, so I was gonna gimp it to a garage that I know down the road and get them to put it on a lift to finish it. I DO NOT think the plate is shifting back and forth to cause this, that wouldn't make sense. And I got under the car and listened as my brother turned it and the sound seems to clearly come from the shaft area.

So what is it? Stationary gear? Bearing? I guess I need to yank the **** out and take it apart, right?

 

This is a bummer. I would pull the engine, put in on a stand and crank it by hand and use a stethescope to probe around and see if you can isolate the area it is coming from. You should only hear gentle popping noises as you crank it through compression. Could be all kinds of stuff. The end play can be a bitch to set properly and if it was not done correctly......
You would think the guy who built the engine would have turned it over by hand before giving it back to you but then again...