clanking inside torque converter
 

sounds like a marble or nut is inside when I turn car on and it spins. car drives fine. any suggestions? safe to drive?

zeroed in to clanking noise
 

It is coming from the part right in front of the torque converter. I can actually see know when I turn the car on through a hole that now sounds like a lawnmower blade o cement.....it spins and I can hear the noise like something is spinning on a rod or something and it sounds like it is hitting the edge of of something metal and hollow. Like a misalighned fan blade in a hollow metal pipe that hits the pipe every once in a while. As I said before, the car still drives fine and I have not noticed any change in any of the transmission functios.:confused:

Sounds like loose bellhousing bolts or more likely loose torque converter bolts assuming of course that a foreign body hasn't made its way in there.

Ismalley, recommend not starting the engine again until you fix the problem because it's only going to get worse, and likely cause expensive damage.

Answer
 

That sounds like a broken flywheel, superseded three times to MB# 1030300512

Please note: NEW screws must be used for mounting it to the crankshaft on every install = never re-use these fasteners as they will break..

Screw, for mounting flywheel to the crankshaft
MB# 1020320071


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Whatever happened with this? My 190d conversion is making the same sound, but drives fine. At idle its making a whacking noise....no vibration, drives fine/smooth, sound disappears as soon as there's load on the drivetrain....

I think it stopped. I haven't heard it in a while. I did put some foam padding over the large hole in the bell housing to lessen the sound some, but I think its gone :D I have not had any problem with driving either. The reason the noise stops when you put load on it is because I think that whatever is spinning around inside gets up speed and eventually stops scraping the inside of the bell housing....I think. Sorta like a spinning top under a glass cylinder; if it spins fast enough its fine, steady, and centered, but once the speed decreases it begins to wobble a bit and may hit the sides of the cylinder.