copied and pasted from a saab forum, any input would be helpfull

ok so im going to do the best i can to make a long story short.

spent this weekend helping a friend do a clutch on an srt-4, ran into problems, couldnt finish it, let him borrow my saab seeing as how its a secondary car for me.

got a call today, saab was towed back to my house, he was driving to the shop that now has his srt4, downshifted into 3rd, and the car ,started to make a grinding / rattling noise. took it out of gear, no rattle, put it back in gear and it got worse, pulled over, shut it off and got it towed.

now lets go back to last monday. i usually only use my saab if its rainy or snowy. last monday was both. i got to work and parked and noticed some smoke coming from under my passenger side fender well area. didnt have a chance to look at anything at that time, seeing as how it was raining and i was already late. drove it home after work, no problems, no noises, no smells, pulled it in the garage, checked everything, no visible problems, everything was tight, all fluid levels fine.

wedensday i took the saab again, once again it was raining. however i had no incidents. it then sat from Thursday till Sunday when i let my friend borrow it. leading us to where we are now.


when i got home from work i was interested to find out what happened. from his description i guessed he had meshed a syncro. go to start the car. it wont turn over on its own power. had to hook up a secondary battery to it to get it to turn over, and that barely got it. cars in neutral and as soon as it starts i hear what sounds like marbles in a washing machine. car ran for about 8 seconds when i notice a decent amount of smoke coming from the drive belt side. shut the car off and investigate. she smoke is coming from around the crank pulley area.

now my guess is that either i have a crank that walked on me or a bent valve. but what really gets me is that it started from a downshift and according to my friend when it first happened it made no noise once put back in neutral.

Hmm, the hard start makes me wonder sicne you never mentioned it having a starting problem before. So your saying that as soon as you start the car in N, you get this horrible wound like a bunch of bolts in a fan? Have you drained the oil to see what it looks like?

no i havent done anything yet, and i most likely wont touch it till this weekend at the earliest, got a pretty busy week ahead of me this week. but yes it makes this noise as soon as it starts.

If someone starts the car, can you have someone else listen for where the noise is coming from? You think its near the bellhousing? Im not familiar with that engine setup? Is it FWD?

i had my dad start it for me while i watched / listened.

the noise seems to be coming from the block closest to the drive belts. its a transversely mounted 4 banger fwd. and like i said the smoke its coming from the area around the crank pulley.

does it smell like burnt oil or anything? Pull the dipstick and smell the oil. Is there oil in the engine... Im not being sarcastic but it does happen. been there before.

no it smells like burning plastic / rubber / something ive never smelt before, and yes theres oil, it ws the first thing i checked, even before attempting to start the car.

well from what bruce said it may not have had an effect on it unless it was under load at the time. so in nuetral the car isnt demanding power where as in gear its looking for somthing. its really ahrd to tell without hearing it.

also i wonder what the oil pump is made out of. wonder it thats what went bad? do you have oil press.( is the light on?)

drew if you wanna hear it go get a bag of marbles, throw them in our drier, and turn it on, same noise. i do have full oil pressure. ive heard oil pumps go before and this sounds different. this sounds a lot like bottom end. almost like my vr-4 when i walked the crank, but it sounds like theres more...

You probably spun a rod bearing and it is knocking now. You could also have a bad front main seal if there is smoke coming from behing the crank pulley.

hmm, didnt think of that one. good point.

burn it.... get a maxima

Id suggest a compression check. I wonder if you snapped a rod and it never went through the block. If your gonna junk it let me know.