My girlsfriends honda civic has a 5sp manual trans. 140k miles.
Lately it has had a noise coming from in, mostly noticeable when clutch is released while ideling in nutral. Its NOT a through out bearing in my opinion because you hear it when you barely push the clutch in(pressure on TO bearing, but tranny still spinning) AND if you push the clutch in, you can hear the noise for a couple seconds untill the tranny glides to a stop.
The noise had been getting increasingly noisyer for the last 25k miles, and gotten REALLY loud in the last 2500 miles.

the sounds is simular to a coffee grinder, kinda a metalic grinding at a high speed.
the tranny functions perfect, but i hope it just doesn't fail leaving her stranded.

any ideas?
Im thinking its realated to the roller bearings inside the trans, but im not really sure.
thx

 

It has to be a TO bearing or other clutch related component, the transaxle would make noises based on engine rpms or else vehicle speed. Eventually whatever component it is will fail and bind up the engine and tranny, making it undriveable.