F-Body Europe

I have this strange drivetrain noise coming from under
my center console. It sounds like somethings is grinding
and feels like its coming right from the tranmission.
It's not there when the car sits in idle,
it starts as soon as I start driving (shifting).
No matter what gear,no matter what speed I'm in. The Volume
of it varies though, sometimes you almost can't hear it but
most of the time its pretty loud. Its so loud I can even
hear it at WOT and with no plate in the borlas.
Pushing the the clutch doesn't make it go away, its there as
soon as the car is in gear and moving.
The car had that noise ever since I had it. I changed tranny
fluid hoping that would make it go away, but it didn't do
anything. The transmission itself works great, I have no
problem with it going through all gears, so I don't think
it actually is a sign of anything going bad.
Does anyone know what is causing that grinding noise
or has anyone experienced that same noise in a 6 speed car ?
Could the problem be the flywheel or the clutch ?
Thanks for your help
Alex

IROC,
Might sound stupid but check the tranny mount. Does it have a poly mount???? I switched mine to a poly mount and you can hear all kinds of noise from the tranny now. Nothing wrong with it just alot of "noise". It did get louder when I put Royal Purple tranny fluid in it, am going to switch back to the GM tranny fluid and it should quite back down some.

Firechicken, yes it does have a poly mount. As far as I know the previous owner installed it shortly before I bought the car. Do you think that a poly mount could cause a "grinding" type of noise ?
The previous owner told me that he had that grinding sound too, even before installing the mount. I think his guess was that it might be the flywheel.

Throw out bearing perhaps? I remember him talking about this noise but I never heard it when I was in the car. Cars act funny when guest are around. ha-ha.

How big of a job is it to change the throw out bearing ? I'm guessing the tranny has to be removed completly ?

If it was there before the mount was put on then you have other problems. Might be the throw out bearing...not a hard job to do just time consuming.

you would hear the throw out bearing while the tranny is in neutral , and whether the clutch was in or out. just something to throw. Iwould check for the normal vibration things such as exhaust and such that when the engine torqus over stuff tends tobang around and make noises. Especially if there is a aftermarket exhaust on there.

Getting ready for another rebuild on mine also.

Hmm, I guess I narrowed down the problem to either be the Pilot bushing or the Throw out bearing. I will replace both when I'll rebuild the tranny sometime soon.
I was just reading about that "grinding" noise on cz28 and I'm kind of surprised that most people say that even if you replace both you will still end up having that noise. They consider it normal and just learn to live with it !! ??
I know that the T-56 is known to be a "loud" tranny but I just can't imagine that its normal for every T-56 to do such noises.
How is with all you T-56 owners out there, do you all have such noises ?? there has to be a way to cure this...

Replace both and see what happens. Mine is quite but I know my TO needs replacing as well. Just when in idle it rattles a little but once I push the clutch in it shuts up. Once I'm in gear I don't hear it no more either but this noise only occurs when the car is cold. I'm sure that'll help your situation.

Your right John, this is exacly what I'm going to do. Better trying to fix it than just giving in and learning to live with it... .. and if that is not going to make it go away completely it should atleast improve things quite a bit... first thing I'll do next though is to replace the poly mount.. maybe I'll see a little improvment out of that too.

BTW: John, are you using a poly mount ?

yep. had it in there 7 yrs now. looks new still.