Hi Everybody,

I would appreciatte some advice regarding my 97 TE. Lately I have noticed a slight rattle coming from the engine bay when the car is idling. The noise is faint and can only be heard from outside the car when it is stationary. Anyway I isolated the noise to the transaxle.
My trusty Gregorys Manual advised me to. "Depress the clutch pedal and engage any gear. If the noise ceases with pedal depressed, it is an indication that the noise is in the transaxle".
As I said the noise is faint and would probably have not been noyiced by the average driver until it got a lot worse. As per the manual I have checked the oil level, its fine and not due for replacement. I dont think its the mounting bolts as the noise is clearly coming from the transaxle internals.
This leaves me with the possibilitty according to the manual of "worn or damged gears or bearing". Now what I would like to know is has anybody else encountered this problem? The problem appears very minor at the moment and does not affect the drivability of the car so can I leave it a while? If I dont fix it now will it cost me more to fix in the long run ?
I am a bit dissapointed that this problem has arisen. The car has only done 152000km and I got the car with 15000km. It never gets driven hard and gets serviced regularly. The clutch is still original and I would have expected it to go before the the gearbox.

Any advice appreciatted.

Nigel

Sounds like the thrust bearing.

Noise goes when clutch pedal is pressed in a little way?

My TH does the same, old TE did the same too. Not sure how serious it is
but the labour involved in fixing it would be astronomical. :cry:

Its dedfinately not the Thrust bearing as the noise goes when the clutch pedal is depressed. If the noise appeared when depressing the clutch pedal, well it probably would be the thrust bearing. Thanks anyway.

Magnas have a "pull" type clutch so they work a little differently to other cars.

Do a search, I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before.

There's a guy on this forum called "funky_fresian cows" who works at a Mitsu dealer. In fact, the same place that fixed my TE in '96. He'll know exactly what it is.

Cheers. :D