Yesterday my lady was driving home from work and said car was making weird noise when she hit the gas I picked hear up and drove it home . I thought it was passenger brake . it only made sound when I came to a stop and started moving again . I changed out brake and went to test drive and at start up I heard clunky rattling from trans . Should I drop the pan and see if some chunks come out or pick em out and try and roll with it or take it somewhere that could fix the trans and let them do it ? It drove fine yesterday besides the noise . I just don't wanna spend money on same thing twice so I am leaning on taking to shop or dealer . Should I have them drain it and pull pan and let me look any advice / moral support could help thanks.

 

Could be the transmission mount. Can you describe the sound better? Is it a heavy metal banging, tinny metal sound, marbles in a jar?

 

I would go with heavy metal bang or maybe towing metal trash can lid but some what spear tic and louder as applying gas

 

On start up you say? Search cracked fly wheel and hope for broke trans mount.

 

Do 02 automatics have a flywheel?

 

After looking up part I guess they do thanks I will check into think its safe to drive on if it's like 5 miles?

 

It was a broken heat shield above the cat . I feel like a bonehead for not seeing earlier.

 

auto's use a flex plate, not a flywheel. A cracked flex plate on auto 4runners is more common than most people think.

 

I loose or broke heat shield was my first choice

 

My mistake. I meant flex plate. Tinny sound is what I associate with heat shields. When he said metal banging, heat shield left my list.

Glad it was a cheap fix.