Name that rattle

Coming home yesterday landy started to rattle like a bag of hammers (200tdi), seemed to me like a bearing in the motor was about to go but as I only had about 5 miles to do I thought I would keep going and I noticed that the rattle did not seem to have any relationship to the load on the motor or throttle used etc. the rattle disappeared occasionally and I didn't notice anything that made it come or go, motor sounds fine just revving it with my head under the bonnet.
It must have been quite loud as it was drawing a lot of attention when I got into the town.
Is it possible the gearbox could make a noise like that as I have been having a bit of trouble with it for a while, difficult to get into second and reverse, though noise was coming in all gears and from the drivers seat the noise seems to come from the bell-housing area

Put transferbox in neutral and run through gears at standstill, any change with clutch in or out?

Thanks for the suggestion, it possibly rules out the gearbox as it sounds OK in all gears with transfer box in neutral.
Took it up the road and rattle started again after about half a mile but nothing specific seems to effect it, rattly motors I have heard before usually get worse under load and go quiet when you back off but this doesn't, it rattles most of the time now but still goes quiet occasionally and when it is back in the shed it doesn't sound too bad.
Checked prop shaft joints etc. but can't find anything and it's not that sort of noise, it's the nasty one like a casting being hit a lot, quickly.
I also noticed it is leaving a bit of blue smoke which it has only ever done on first start up.

I had this. It turned out to be the alternator the bearings in it had gone.

Dave

Wotsit4 said:

Thanks for the suggestion, it possibly rules out the gearbox as it sounds OK in all gears with transfer box in neutral.
Took it up the road and rattle started again after about half a mile but nothing specific seems to effect it, rattly motors I have heard before usually get worse under load and go quiet when you back off but this doesn't, it rattles most of the time now but still goes quiet occasionally and when it is back in the shed it doesn't sound too bad.
Checked prop shaft joints etc. but can't find anything and it's not that sort of noise, it's the nasty one like a casting being hit a lot, quickly.
I also noticed it is leaving a bit of blue smoke which it has only ever done on first start up.

Click to expand...

Are you saying that there is no noise when the transfer box is in neutral?
You can run through the gears etc and no noise.

The noise comes and goes a bit but it does not sound too bad just revving it when it is stationary and it doesn't make any difference if the transfer box is in N and any gear engaged, it does rattle a bit then but this is the first diesel I have owned and am not sure if it is much more than you would expect from a diesel but when going down the road it sounds quite bad to me sometimes.
Don't think it is the alternator as there doesn't seem to be much noise at all coming from that area.
Hoping to get someone with a bit more of a trained ear to listen to it later today.

Just had an opinion off someone more familiar with diesel motors and he says it's the diesel injectors that need servicing.