Hagis

Ok so, this car started off auto, i swapped to manual. I put in a new clutch (exedy stage 1) during the swap and everything ran great for like 3 months. Saturday night i ran the local touge and the car performed wonderfully, i didn't drive it sunday. This morning (monday) i walk out and scrape all the ice off the car and start her up. At idle in neutral with the clutch out there's this horrible grinding chattering noise coming from the front of the transmission, loud enough that i turned the car off immediately because I was pretty sure something was about to explode.

The sound is similar to when u miss a shift and grind the gears, but like a lower pitch, kind of like if the gears were spinning slowly and they grinded. At first i thought it was the clutch chattering between the fly wheel and pressure plate, but that doesnt make any sense cause the clutch was out.

It makes the sound when..
-the car is in neutral with the clutch out
-in gear with the clutch out, especialy if i take my foot off the gas
-shifting, its even louder

The sound stops when i put the clutch in and the tranny is in neutral, but if i rev it like this it makes the sound again.

so, ummm any ideas?? I'm really getting tired of fixing random ****

Levi SPL S14

did you change the throw out bearing?

Hagis

yes, I changed the throwout bearing and the pilot bushing. I started it up again last night and it made the noise then stopped. It still sounds like something is rubbing if i rev it and let off. I guess i'll pull the tranny and check it out when i have some time.

Roastem

check your fluid level.....
sounds like the new throwout bearing went bad... wouldnt be the first time a new part has failed.
the only other thing i can think of is the dust shield that is sandwiched between the flywheel and engine has popped up and is rubbing the flywheel.... but this seem likely to me.

Hagis

Well I started dropping the tranny yesterday, but i got lazy and stopped after i did all the easy stuff. My dad thinks the flywheel might have come loose after a few months of me beating the hell out of it since we had a hard time tightening the bolts because the engine just turns over when u try to torque them. This theory explains the chatter when letting the clutch out and why it stopped intermittently while driving.

We were trying to prevent this by basically jamming a screwdriver in the teeth of the flywheel, but that obviously didn't work too well. Hopefully i didn't grenade any clutch parts, we'll find out this weekend.

anyone reccomend a good way to stop the engine from turning over when tightening flywheel bolts?

Thanks for your help guys.

Levi SPL S14

put one of the transmission blots back in. Use a open ended wrench a, usethe bolt as a stopper, then tighten . Works for me.

Hagis

Alright, so i finally got around to getting that transmission out, stupid work and school take all my time. So we seperate the transmission from the engine, to my surprise I wasn't greeted by a pile of metal fragments and destroyed clutch plarts. After screwing around for while we finally figure out the correct way to turn the transmission so it doesn't hit the fire wall when we try to pull it out. Transmission comes down and strangely enough, everything looks okay. After the racket it was making i was sure something would be absolutely annihilated. T-O bearing spins fine, pressure plate still looks brand new, input shaft looks the same as always. The clutch disk looks fine despite my beating the hell out of it on a near daily basis and oh look, 3 of the bolts holding the flywheel in backed out. The flywheel was chattering against the bolts and whatever it hits on the backside.

Yup, I botched that one pretty good. At least the fix is free and easy and I didn't destroy the transmission or anything in the engine as I feared. Time to put everything back together so I can go play in the snow.

twofourtyesex

well thats cool that you figured it out. my clutch is sounding pretty weird these days as well. turbo setup is going on in a matter of days, so i'm just going to drop the tranny and torque everything down a bit to ensure i dont rip any bolts out from the increase in power. weird, my clutch fluid is black , sitting in the master cylinder. im gonna bleed like a gallon of fluid through it to flush it all out.

Roastem

hey twofourtyesex, my dog is dead...... you think you could bring him back from the dead too? J/K...

twofourtyesex

sorry i guess i missed the joke.