Corey Kelley

After some hard driving on the highway one day I noticed when starting off in 1st as I let the clutch out my gearshift starts to rattle along with the clutch pedal, I thought it was knocking but revving it in neutral doesn’t make the noise, at low rpm in any gear it rattles the shifter and the clutch pedal
I checked the oil level, it was good and was due to be changed in a 1,000 miles so I went ahead and changed it
The transmission was pulled, input shaft seal was bad so we replaced it and drained the oil it still had in it to check for metal shavings there were some but not a lot and not enough to make the mechanic seem concerned, we put a socket on the end of it and spun it while I worked the shifter back and forth and it felt smooth.
Drained the diff and didn’t find any metal shavings there either.
The clutch had a spring fall out of it and we thought maybe that was the problem so I ordered an OEM clutch and we installed it. Oddly the issue is still there but it doesn’t feel as bad as it did before. If anyone has advice for a newbie it would be greatly appreciated.

A little bit of background:
I’m a car guy with little to no experience partly because everything I’ve owned has been under warranty and also partly due to my parents wishes. Once I was on my own I bought a 2014 5.0 and later a ‘15 BRZ and after having them a few years I traded both for a Shelby GT350. After some time I decided I needed a practical daily driver (lots of deer in my area) so I traded the Shelby for an F150 and started looking for a project. I thought for someone with minimal skills like myself a miata would be good vehicle to start with but during my search I came across a 2003 S2000 for a decent price (not much more than I would pay for a miata) and now here I am.

The car:
It’s a 2003 with ~280,000 miles, I got it about a month ago with 2,500ish less miles. The motor (AP1) has about 130,000 miles and the transmission (AP2) has about 70,000. The only issue with it that I didn’t like was it had a little clutch buzz during deceleration which I learned was typical but other than that everything has been great.

B serious

You're likely just letting the RPM drop too low.

This car struggles and rattles with very low RPM. Rev it a bit more to get it going.

Check your engine and trans mounts for any cracking, to be sure.

Corey Kelley

I’ll check them out, one of the reason I bought the car was all of the hoses, motor/trans mounts and basically all the soft pieces that would go bad had been replaced
And it wasn’t rattling before which is what leads me to believe something is actually wrong

Manga_Spawn

Yeah all mounts should be checked with that many miles. Engine, trans and diff. The are likely blown. When the clutch was replaced was the flywheel resurfaced or anything? OEM throw out bearing used with the new oem clutch? I agree with B serious if you let the rpm drop low these cars tend to chug before stalling out.

Any cels come on? I guess it could be a misfire or something but a cel should come on with a misfire. Maybe some bad fuel or something went through and caused it to sputter? Map sensor dirty?

Slowcrash_101

How's the shifter bushing? That will cause some slop and rattling of the shifter even if it's only cracked.

B serious

Truu truu

Corey Kelley

The mounts are all good, there are no cels, I don’t think it’s bad gas because I only go to one gas station so my truck has the same gas in it (93), the shifter bushing shouldn’t be the culprit because I can feel it in the clutch pedal as well... the mechanic put it all back together and I’m going to take it for a few days and drive it a little so maybe I can find some more signs. I’m not sure that the way I drive it is the problem M pretty sure I keep it around 3-4,000rpm and I drove the car for a few weeks like that without issue and I don’t think it stalled out on me once

My concern is that it’s something in the motor, this one had about 120,000 miles on it and was swapped in 10,000 miles ago.

Corey Kelley

I should mention i revved it with the cable while I had the hood open and it doesn’t make any kind of rattle or knock like I can hear and feel when I’m driving it, it’s only when it’s in gear at low rpm

B serious

What RPM is low RPM?

Live Fast

Sounds to me like either clutch buzz or I have seen a similar issue in a poorly machined flywheel when doing a clutch.

Does it seem to be in the 2200-3700 range when it happens?
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