Its a pretty tricky job to change out the bearing, if it were mind i would either take a wack at it and bring it ot the shop after i break it (dont make the same mistakes i make
), or just bring it to the shop.
Don't totally reject the idea of a bad throwout bearing like the other guys are saying. that is much cheaper/easier to replace and would somewhat explain your symptoms. However i feel that throwout bearings tend to make noise when you press in the clutch (the bearing moves in towards the flexplate to push on the little fingers to disengage it.
Bad throwout bearings usualy make a whirring type noise **as you depress the pedal**. If your input bearing has gone bad. it will make noise when the clutch is engaged and its in neutral. What is happening is your all of the sleeves/gears/cogs (whatever you want to call them) on the main shaft are disengaged from the secondary shaft and ithe input shaft just spins (thats neutra with the clutch pedal not depressed) , it would usually (but not always) be a grinding/machine noise (you used "horrible", i have heard both, it certainly sounds worse then a bad throwoutbearing does). I suppose it could also be a bearing supporting the secondary shaft...hmm, you must tell me when you get it fixed, now i must know.
my
is to check the throwout bearing, if it looks bad, replace it. if the problem is still there, bite the bullet and get the tranny checked out. after all, your going to have to drop the tranny anyways.
