Quick question: Grinding Noise on MGF

Soldato
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Hey all, my girlfriend bought an MGF in October, had a bit of work done as it was bought needing it doing, which was all fine & dandy et al, now she's heard something today thats worrying her, i'm not sure if its anything or not as my technical knowlege is pretty limited (to none).

Basically, she was sitting in the drive, car in neutral, waiting for me to get stuff sorted, with the passenger side door open, she was in reverse, waiting to back out the drive, then realised i'm a prissy git and take ages, so she put it in neutral, once she released the clutch with the car in neutral, there's a quite faded grinding noise coming from behind, whether its something on the gearbox/clutch (I assume?) I don't know, but its only in neutral at idle rpm, it seems to be louder on the passenger side, especially with your head to the left (passenger) intake vent.

Any thoughts on what it could be, as she's a bit worried and a new clutch/gearbox (if the worst came to worst) is VERY out of budget right now! :eek:
 
not having money set aside is a bad idea if you own an F, however the F is known for a poor gearbox, could just be the transaction from reverse to netural, could look into Slick Shift Kit IV for about £170 but not sure to be honest, this has never happend to my F so maybe you need to ask this at http://forums.mg-rover.org/forumdisplay.php?f=12
 
my mrs drives a rover, less tuned and less toys...

it needed a new clutch and gearbox at 67k, not from her driving I might add, shes a pretty good driver, never rags it or cruch's the gears...

I took it to the garage to have my cheapo second hand gearbox fitted, and the guy says rovers need new gearbox's more than oil changes... he did the job in 1.5 hours he's that used to doing them.

even now with a low milage gearbox, it makes some funky noises while in or coming out of reverse.

rovers are poor.....
 
Kinda swooshy, yeah, almost sounds like something is spinning and just catching on something, but after heading the the MG forum and asking on there, that seems like a pretty good assumption as of now. She's just given Mr Clutch (At the advice of someone on the MG forums) (Any reviews, any good etc..?) a call, and they said they'd check it out for free, and do a clutch release bearing and new clutch for £400 :(

Any tips on that quote? Or WAY too much?
 
I'd avoid Mr Clutch. £400 is pretty steep - but I don't know what the labour involved in changing a clutch on an MGF is, I'd imagine it's a PITA.

Personally, I'd be expecting a quote of about £250, you need a local independant village garage. Somewhere that cares about repeat business.
 
And the Rover gearboxes are either Peugeot, Honda or Ford designs! So those slating rover can stfu ;)

£400 just for the clutch is about 4x what id expect to pay.

My mate just bought a new clutch for his 220 turbo from rover, with pressure plate and clutch release bearing for £130. Unipart or similar will be cheaper than this still!

I know on my car its in the "book" as 3-4 hours labour to change the box, dont know how long it would be on an MGF though.
 
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£400 will be a fitted price, i doubt Mr Clutch will sell you bits...

You want a new unit (Clutch Kit) not some referb ****.

Clutch Kits cost upwards of £100, depends who you get it from, get a good make the Sachs.
 
The Peugeot gearboxes used in the smaller engined FWD cars are utter crap, and do indeed fail regularly. The PG1 used on the 1.8 engined cars is vastly better though. It can cope with the torque from the turbo'd T series (for a while :D ) so should last a long time on a nasp 1.8 K.

Does the swoosh-swoosh noise dissappear as soon as you press the clutch pedal down?
 
Clutch Kits cost upwards of £100, depends who you get it from, get a good make the Sachs.
I got a brand new EBC clutch kit (including release bearing) for £45 + £15 postage from ebay. This was for my MG ZS but I believe the MGF uses the same unit. Unfortunately it's gone from my ebay history now, but I'm 90% sure it was from this seller (I did a best offer):
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CLUTCH-KIT-25...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

EDIT: I just checked my email history and it was indeed from that seller. :)
 
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Thanks Wicksta, we'll definitely look into that option and grab a few quotes tomorrow to see what we'd be looking at to fix it! :)

Clutch is all good and ok with you i'm assuming? :)
 
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