318ti.org forum - Elusive can of marbles...

So here's the deal- I few months back, I started getting this sound coming from under the hood that sounded like someone shaking a spray paint can. It was most prominent when cold and loudest when I would disengage the clutch to take off. Once I was rolling, it would pretty much disappear but then when I would shift, noise again as I was disengaging the clutch. I figured my throw-out bearing was on the way out as it sounded pretty like a dying TO bearing would.

Then one day, I was spraying some belt lube on one of the drive belts when it was cold and the sound absolutely disappeared. Didn't come back for a few days and when it finally did, spraying the belt quieted the noise again. So now I'm looking to something that contacts the drive belt as the culprit. I started by removing the upper idler pulley and it had a ton of play in it, so I replaced it. Noise went away for a week or two, then came back slowly. I shot some oil into the belt tensioner pulley and noise went away again, so I replaced the belt tensioner pulley. Same thing, few weeks of no noise, then noise came back.

While I had the tensioner pulley off, I did notice a little play in the tensioner mechanism (hydraulic shock). Which brings me to the only remaining things that I can think it might be: Bad tensioner shock, Alternator bearings are fried, or worse- something internal in the engine. Valve noise of some sort? Car is parked until I figure this thing out, and while the pulley replacement was cheap and needed to be done anyway, continuing to 'trial and error' it is going to get progressively expensive (tensioner --> alternator --> ???)

Thanks for any help- car is a '95 ti w/ M42