Grinding and/or Loud Rattling with Clutch Depressed

[Dyoct]

Is this the end of my clutch? What have manual owners seen in the higher miles when the clutch wears out?

 

Upon startup there was a metallic rattling coming from under hood. I couldn't get into gear. I shut off and retried, no problems. A few days later I start up and same thing, although as I pressed in the clutch, it made this loud grinding sound, went away when I let off. Wouldn't go into gear. Turned off, restarted, grinding into initial gear then normal. I get her home and park yesterday. Tonight I went to move into a different parking spot and as I was turning the key to start, the car kept trying to move forward with every turn of the engine despite having the clutch fully down like somebody just learning how to drive stick. It ground into reverse and 1 but drove fine the 20 or so feet to another spot where once I put it out of gear it didn't want to go back in and would rattle like hell when I pressed down the clutch. I did a bit of searching but not alot is found. Anything I should check or should I call to schedule a clutch replacement? When it drove it didn't slip or any other symptoms. I'm at 117K and I've only had one clutch go out/wear out before but that thing slipped a ton, especially under hard accel, on a different-cable actuated pedal.

[gaycarguy]

sounds like the throw out bearing is going bad. May not be the clutch, but you would probably be wise to do it while the bearing is being replaced. What did you end up doing, as I see your post was from November.

[Dyoct]

I ended up blowing the diffpin! Holy crap.

 

Was just taking off from a light normally, not WOT, not aggressive or anything and I heard

what sounded like ice breaking. But car accelerated fine, no lights came on, no drivability symptoms noted. No other unusual noises. I was less than a mile from home so I parked it. Nothing noticed either. Later than night, I saw a puddle of fluid underneath. Google search, looked around here, thought maybe the slave cylinder, nope it was dry. I had it towed to a local shop and they dropped the trans and found a hole and the pin outside. Damn.

 

Are there any differential upgrades for this car? As an SHO owner the diffpin was always on the back of mind as those are notorious(sometimes they’ll blow on the track or they’ll blow under normal driving) but it never happened there and I eventually upgraded to a Quaife.