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• Keep them clean. I mean religiously clean! Clean them before every threading and clean them well every night. Do a good "take apart" cleaning once every week or so. Christie projectors don't like to be dirty. Problem is that they get dirty just standing still!
  
• Check the belts. Make sure they aren't too tight or too loose. They should be just tight enough so that the teeth grab the pulleys and don't slap around when they run. Too tight or too loose and they will spite you in all sorts of ways. If they are starting to shed black junk all over the insides of the projector change them.
  
• Use belt dressing. You can buy it from Christie or you can get it at the hardware store. Look for a brand called Panef. You won't believe how quiet this will make your projectors. It's like magic!
  
• Make sure you are threading correctly. Every Christie projector I work on came with a little poster that tells how to thread. I have them posted up in various places throught our booths. If the loops are too big or too small they will be noisy. (And probalby damage film.) If you thread the sound head with too much tension, not only will it be noisy you stand to damage the projector. (Unless you have those "snubbers" installed in your sound heads.) You should thread so that there's only one sprocket hole's worth of tension. Just enough so that the rollers "float" off the sound drum and no more.
  
• Does the intermittent clatter? It ought to be quiet. Christie intermittents (I mean ULTRAmittents) can go bad on you in a heartbeat. They'll either run forever or they won't run at all. They are sealed so there's nothing you can do but replace them once they go bad.
  
• Finally, make sure that all your sprockets and pad rollers are aligned properly. If they are off, even by a little bit, they will be noisy and can damage film. Check the trap/gate alignment while you're at it.
  

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Also, if your projector is skipping notches when you advance it, throw it away and get a new one (the entire projector). Actually there is probably a simpler method than that. I took me a while to correct this problem on one of my Christie's, but I can't exactly remember what I did... it was so long ago. But it never had that problem again. Perhaps Christie could re-educate us on the technique.

PG35-GPS' are designed to cause a bullet to richochet. I'm still limping

You get a "Wzzzzhhh" sound as the belts grind off the pulleys.
You get a "Thunk-Thunk" sound as the teeth on the belts skip off the teeth in the pulleys.
You get a "Weeeee-Weeee" sound as the bearings start to go South on you.
You get a "ZZZZZZZZ" sound as the film ticks off the sprocket teeth when the tension of the sound head is too tight.
You get a "Nya-Nya-Nya" sound if the pad rollers are set wrong and the film starts to go wonky.
You get a "Ticka-Ticka-CHUNK" sound when the ultramittent is about to blow up on you.

The sound that old, crummy film makes is more like a "Kt-t-t-t-t-t" sound.

Put them all together and it goes something like this:
"Wzzzzhhh-Thunk-Thunk-Weeeee-ZZZZZZZ-Nya-Nya-Ticka-Ticka-CHUNK-Kt-t-t-t-t-t"

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quote:

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What is sonex?

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Sonex is a brand of acoustically-absorbent material designed to be hung on walls to deaden room noise. "Sonex" is often used generically to refer to any wall-mounted acoustical foam.

It can be seen covering the walls of some noisy industrial installations, most broadcasting & recording facilities, & for some unknown reason, Star Trek sets.

Sonex is an expensive brand; there are other manufacturers of acoustical foam. Check the Holy Grainger Catalog, or their website. Search for "acoustical foam", you'll get a number of hits like this one:

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/productdetail.jsp?xi=xi&ItemId=1611783082

Modern acoustical foams are remarkable. They'll reduce noise in a room dramatically.

Hang it up. Discover that it gets warm as noise increases (where did you think the energy went, anyway?) Have fun installing it by cutting the odd-shaped pieces with an electric carving knife. Be the 12 billionth person to observe that there is male & female sonex.