I recently bought 2002 1.6 Civic and on first morning when car was cold and I started it up I noticed that gearbox was making relatively loud "cement mixer" kinda sound on idle. So loud that it was clearly noticeable when I pushed clutch pedal down and the noise disappeared. Let pedal up and noise came back. After warming up noise isn't that bad anymore, but still noticeable if listening carefully. Shifting works OK and there's no noises when I drive. I didn't notice this sound when I was test driving the car as it had warmed up enough when I reached quiet enough place to listen for odd noises.

Then I read all over the internet that this would be common for Civics that input shaft bearings are weak. So apparently this is going to fail sooner or later and nothing else can be done than to either replace or repair the gearbox? I'm taking the car back to the shop next week so they can take a look at it, but I'm not optimistic that they'll do anything drastic about it as "old cars make noises"...

 

the throwout bearing and input shaft bearing are an issue with these cars yes. i have known people specifically very broke people to go many many miles on a bad input shaft bearing. the job usually cost $300-$400 dollars but if your going to replace that you mite as well replace the throwout and clutch to.

 

Guys at the shop heard the noise too and tried changing gearbox oil, but "surprisingly" it didn't have any effect. They said that old oil was quite dark, so propably gearbox oil has never been changed, reason why bearings fail? Old oil didn't have any metal shred in it tho. If it's the throwout bearing is there any other way to diagnose it than taking the gearbox out? Everyone is telling me that it's the throwout bearing, but wouldn't that make noise when clutch pedal is depressed? I'm not sure if I'm capable of fixing this myself so it's going to cost small fortune if letting pro's handle it, 800-1000 dollars would be my bet inc. parts and labor if it's ISB and need to take the gearbox out and put it to pieces. Sigh.

 

the throwout makes noise when the clutch is pressed the input shaft makes noise when the clutch is let off. to replace the input shaft bearing itself would be around 300-400 the throwout at the same time not much more. there are videos on youtube you can reference.