Thanks a lot for the suggestions. Are you coming up to Ann Arbor anytime soon?? haha


well, i really think the ticking and rough idle are NOT related, b/c the idle started last night after I pulled the air filter housing out and cleaned the air filter. (Also, the engine bay was filthy w/ lots of sand & leaves and i was cleaning these) This maybe why it's got a subtle rough idle now.

From my reading, the ticking noise is most likely caused in my 119 engine by bad oil guides and/or the engine mounts. Good thing is that neither are super critical for driving, so I'll leave these alone for now. I can always turn the radio up. The only thing is that the ticking seems to come from underneath, not from the valve covers..

The car is a 97 with 105k miles. 1 original owner. He had all maintenance receipts. Everything looks good, except the diff & ATF was never replaced. Also, there are multiple rust spots (Michigan) It looks like the car was not driven too much in the past year and was parked outside, so there are all kinds of debris & dead insects in the engine bay. I wouldn't be suprised if the engine mounts are bad.