Transmiwhat?

Can anyone help me diagnose the following symptoms?:

A loud "clacking" sound from the gearbox/clutch area that increases in frequency and intesity with speed. The sound goes away when the clutch is disengaed and the car is coasting. The clacking is not audible at idle when revving the engine. The pitch and frequency of the clacking changes when gears are changed. Shocks can be felt through the shifting knob in synchrony with the clacking.

Significantly, there are no problems with shifting into any gear, and the car stays in all gears (no slipping). There is no grinding while shifting, nor are there any massive vibrations. There is no slipping of the clutch, and the car stalls out just fine if the clutch is engaged while the brake is depressed. I was able to drive the car 5 miles home @ 30 mph, but the car was audibly unhappy.

This was a sudden onset issue, not noticible before I parked at at the grocery store, but unmissable after I started back up to go home 15 minutes later.

I've been pretty gentle on this car, but I bought it used with 20K miles on it. The original owner stuck a performance suspension on which makes me wonder about its earlier days. I've put another 60K on over 4 years (80K total) without any noticible issues.

I'm thinking flywheel or differential, or perhaps (god no) the transmission is shot.

Anyone have any ideas? Am I screwed here?

Thanks in advance!

Transmiwhat?

Ah, I forgot to mention this is for a 2004 TSX 6-spd manual with 80K miles.

huludicidal

Since the noise goes away when the clutch is disengaged and coasting, this is likely not a gearbox issue. Regardless of the clutch being engaged, when the car is coasting, the gearbox is spinning. This kind of sounds like something (like a broken throwout bearing) interacting/interfering with the pressure plate springs. When you press the clutch, everything engages as it should but when you release the clutch, you get some interference.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to diagnose this type of noise. I can bet if you pull the tranny, you'll immediately find out what's going on.

neocrynym

This, my friend, is your problem:

https://acurazine.com/forums/1g-tsx-problems-fixes-128/04-tsx-6mt-front-end-sound-clicking-through-gearshift-667479/

Hope you have plenty of spare cash laying around.