Grinding clutch

Hello fellas, starting 2 days ago im hearing some god awful grinding sounds in my clutch..heres whats happening, ill push in the clutch and sometimes it will make a slight screaching sound but when i put it in gear it gets a little higher and then when i release the clutch its just got this straight up grinding noise and i can feel it in the clutch pedal then when i take it out of gear and put it in neutral the grinding starts going down and then eventually stops, but then again sometimes it keeps grinding even in neutral

what is really driving me nuts is there is days like today when i drove it to work on it and it didnt make one sound it seems to only happen when the clutch has got some heat in it after driving it a few hours, 1-4 go into gear fine but reverse is real hard to get into gear and it seems to be the gear where the grinding happens the most

its hard to pinpoint whats going on because it only does it when it wants to and how it wants to and when it wants to stop, its not consistent at all, and also on the highway at higher speeds while changing gears it will make a very faint sound but it wont keep grinding and goes into gear fine, its only when coming off of lights or from a stop of some sort..i think its the throwout bearing, what do u think??

by the way its a 50 plymouth with a richmond 4 speed into a centerforce clutch on a 302..thank you ahead of time for any input you can give me

 

You are probably going to find a unamimous answer here, take it apart and see for sure. That Richmond wasn't cheap right?

 

We know that whatever it is, you're going to have to drop the trans and bellhousing out to get to it to fix it. I agree with you, sounds like you've got a bad throwout bearing that is seizing up and not turning freely when it contacts the clutch fingers. Had one do that one time and it burned through the clutch fingers, had to replace the pressure plate because of it.

 

that sounds like Bad news Drew

 

Agree on the T/O bearing being likely culprit

 

Had that same thing happen on an O/T camaro....one of the springs came loose in the clutch disk. Made a hell of a racket at certain times.....
I'd fix it before it tears up something else.

 

Thanks for the responses guys, i was going to take the ****** out today but im visiting in az from denver and i dont have any of my tools or a place to work on it out here so im trying to figure that out before i can do anything lol when it rains it pours but hey could be worse could of gotten out of hand in between here and denver..its not being driven anymore untill i get in there and figure it out but i think the throw out bearing will be my answer