E30 Zone

My 318i Touring has just started making an odd noise - when stationary, depress the clutch and it disappears, but with clutch up it has a rattle coming from the gearbox area - first guess was the thrust bearing, but as you slow down using engine braking, I'm getting a similar rattle so I'm presuming it's a fault in the gearbox - any ideas? It's worse when the car's done a few miles - pretty quiet first thing in morning.

could be the inoput shaft bearing, or the clutch release bearing possibly.

not quite sure, wait till some one wsle comes along i think

input shaft brg probs ,had a few do it when warm after run

Cheers for the replies.

If it's the input shaft bearings, will it go for a while like this, or is it likely to give up and leave me stranded?

I guess when it goes, it's easier to just get a 2nd hand gearbox for it too?

Mine rattled for about 25k until I had to replace it for another problem.

It's said to be normal, and I also heard of people who rebuilt the whole thing only to have the rattle show up again a few K down the road.

So nothing much to worry there, and yes, 2nd hand box is the sensible thing to do.

Cheers - think I'll need to get looking for a box sooner rather than later though as when in town today, I got a nasty bearing squeel for a bit - then it went and hasn't come back yet.............