Morning all. I have a vintage mini 1275 cc. Recently had the tranny rebuilt and all new drop gears. Car was running fine for about 100 miles ( lucky me). The car developed a noise when depressing the clutch and figured it was the release bearing so just finished replacing it. Now I have a noise that appears to be coming from the bell housing area. At idle you can hear the noise, sounds kind of like a metal chattering. With the car in neutral and sitting in the garage I hear the noise at idle, accelerate a few hundred R's and the noise quietens down as I accelerate to the noise gets real loud. Real chattering. I used the old extension to the case to try and find the location and it appears to be coming more from the clutch side of the flywheel and not the engine side, hoping to eliminate drop gear problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you checked the spacing of the primary gear when you install the drop gears? I did have a noise like what you have explained but mine turned out I didn't locktite the bolts for the clutch to the flywheel......and they slowly backed out

 

Also check the center flywheel bolt. One of our club members had a similar noise and found the bolt had backed out a little then galled, making him think it was tight when it wasn't.

Also, did you get the horseshoe shaped clip in properly? Turn the crankshaft till the open side of the clip faces down, then it doesn't fall out when you slide the flywheel assy over it.

 

I did check the tolearance with the Primary gear and installed the correct shim. I did install the horseshoe clip correctly. I installed a new flywheel bolt and locking tab and torqued to specifications but I will recheck when I pull the engine this time. I did not remove the clutch from the flywheel but will also check the bolts again. I get the noise with the clutch depressed or not which leads to seem like something on the clutch side of the flywheel. I figured with the clutch depressed then the drop gears are disengaged and nothing in that area or the tranny would be spinning to cause the noise. If the flywheel were loose, it seems as though the noise would go away at higher RPM due to centrifugal force (just a guess here). I did not have the noise prior to replacing the release bearing which is real strange. Just wondering what I could have screwed up replacing the bearing. This an A+ with Verto clutch. Thanks for the input, I will post the finding once I figure it out. Any more advice would be appreciated.