2001 Montero sport timing tensioner failure: cold start idle clatter. (2015-9-5)

This was at cold start up. Noise vantage point from within wheel wells and at front grill. This noise just started. I have no clue what it could be. I checked the fan blades and nothing is hitting or vibrating about. This is a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Sport with a 3.0l. It's a 4wd automatic with 225,000 miles on the OD. It's goes away after full warm up.

Turns out it was a failure of a new shop tech to fully tighten up the bolts on the timing belt tensioner... it had shifted and was rubbing on the plastic timing cover. It went away because the friction of it rubbing was melting away and cutting the cover. It would return the next day after the plastic cooled and hardened up.

Upon further investigation the Timing tensioner pulley had been left disconnected by a tech when doing a water pump replacement. This lead to the timing tensioner hydraulic portion failing in February 2016. The clatter noise is the timing belt slapping around due to lack of tensioning by the tensioner.

Leaving the tensioner loose like that lead to its failure shortly after.