I'm new ! With light & sound problems.

[Foxalpha3]

Straight up, I'm saving for a car of my own. I'm a BMW Kid at heart & some time next year I'll be rolling around in an E46.

But for now, I'm in a corolla 4x4 wagon !
My uncle has gone overseas for quite a while and gave me his car while he's gone, as I just got my license a few months back.
He didn't take much care of her, but she's a good car, fun to drive, kinda zippy, and she goes easy on the fuel ! Unlike my mums 3.6L v6, which with an AWD system strapped on, drinks like an irishman on st patricks day.

She's not in the best condition I'm afraid, the paint on the roof is damn near gone, and the bonnet looks like a mouldy pancake. No rust though, yet :P
Happily, no dents or crazy scratches.

The issue is inside, the instrument cluster & all dash lights fail to work.
They were fine, till one night I fired her up, put the lights on and had no dash. Its pretty hazardous as I don't know how fast I'm going unless I use my phones GPS Speedo.
It's late at night now, but in the morning I'll use some info from this thread to suss out the problem:
dashboard lights wont light up

The more pressing issue is a terrible & loud sound from the engine.
I drive spiritedly sometimes, and if I'm in second gear, and hit 50-60kmh (35mph) the engine makes a louuud sound. It sounds like metal vibrating on metal, its high pitched, a bit like a buzz, and it happens every time without fail.
I don't have a tacho but I know it's at high revs, and im sure its not the rev limiter. I've heard it could be a timing belt (checked that, she's fine) or gravel in the heatshield (not sure how to check that one)

Thanks in advance for any help, and I'm pumped to be a part of your community !

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...1150900pm.jpg/

[eberbs1]

Hello, welcome to the forums.
Your dash light issue sounds lie the dimmer switch could be on its way out, wiggle the dimmer switch around a bit and see if it fixes it.
As for the noise it does sound like it might be something in the exaust, that might be harder to track down.

[Foxalpha3]

Thanks for your reply
Yeah I'll go suss out the fuses (already replaced one, to no avail)
And I'll mess around with the dimmer.

Do you have any idea where I could start looking for the source of the sound? Annoyingly, it's pretty broad :P but it sounds like it's coming from the front of the car

[eberbs1]

I would take the heat guard off of the exhaust manifold and check all the manifold bolts, i had one of those bolts come loose and fall onto the manifold and bounce around. Failing that it might be best to have a shop find the source of the sound.

[Foxalpha3]

Hmmmm yes, I pulled off the exhaust manifolds heatshield about 15 minutes ago, and it all seemed to be in perfect working order, nothing loose, nothing sitting around looking like it could be the source of the sound.

Wishfully thinking I took her for a test drive anyway :P Still made the sound sadly

[Foxalpha3]

Dash lights solved ! Dimmer was buggered, grabbed a new one from the wreckers and put it in, bingo ! Lit up like a christmas tree.

However the engine sound still exists..
You can rev past it, but it still exists.
Any ideas?