Clutch issue ?

[jondee86]

Well nothing obvious. Looking at the inside of a T50 gearbox when
the box is in neutral with the engine idling, it can be seen that some
parts on the output shaft are being driven by the countershaft. The
driven parts are made to spin freely by being mounted on bearings.

In general undamaged ball, roller or needle roller bearings have low
friction and transmit negligible torque between the inner and outer
race. But if a piece of debris gets into the bearing and wedges itself
between a rolling element and a race, the rolling element may become
a sliding element. This increases friction and the amount of torque
transmitted from the driven part to the shaft it is spinning on.

The particle of debris may be very small, but bearings have close
tolerances, so something the size of a grain of sand can be a problem.
However, if the debris is a bit of gasket material, tiny piece of brass
or similar "soft" material, and it is only causing one rolling element to
skid, it may well go unnoticed for a long time and cause little damage.

On the other hand, if it is a "hard" particle like a flake of hard surface
of a gear, it may dig into the bearing race and lead to early bearing
failure. Without using sophisticated vibration/acoustic analysis and
bench testing the gearbox, it is near impossible to diagnose what your
gearbox problem might be. It may be a synchroniser ring dragging or
some other oddball event.

But back in the real world, if you continue to drive the car and pay
close attention to the behavior of the gearbox, you just need to stop
on a level surface every now and then, and see if the car still creeps
in neutral while idling

Cheers... jondee86