Help identifying this noise

[hear]

This noise is a recent development. I hear it from the driver's seat, but this was my first real chance to take a 10 second video of it. I can still hear it while I'm driving, but road noise with the doors off makes it hard to hear if the frequency changes etc. This is taken from the passenger side front wheel well, where it seems to be most pronounced.

(apologies for not videoing in landscape mode).



Any ideas?

 

[03coloradowrangler]

not too sure, but maybe pop your distributor cap off and wiggle the shaft the rotor attaches to. shouldn't be sloppy but if it is you could have a bad bearing on the shaft for the distributor assembly causing the noise. I had ran into a clicking noise from mine and found the shaft was sloppy in the bearing, though my 03 I just have a camshaft sensor in place of a distributor cap.

if it were me, id get a chunk of hose and cautiously probe around the engine bay with the other end to my ear as if it were a stethoscope.

 

[AndyG]

Do you think it’s under the hood or drive train

 

[hear]

I think I have isolated the problem...seems to be coming from my distributor ('97, 4.0L). If I put my finger on one of the plug wires at the distributor I can feel it "click" as it makes the periodic sound.

In the interest of complete diagnosis, I did change my oil pump last summer. I've had zero oil pressure problems since then, but since the distributor does "plug into" the oil pump I figured it's worth mentioning.

I guess I need to look into replacing this thing.