Today my exhaust gave up, it's half broken were the mufler bolts up to the B pipe. Now my mufler hangs loose en rattles like ****, no panic there yet...

But I also get this weird noise when I shift (5 speed manual), now I found out when I push the shifter left or right, with the clutch floored ofcourse there is this grinding noise, like I push the shifter's bottom to something rotating and it scrapes against it (sounds like if you hold a screwdriver against a metal rotating wheel or something). Could this be some piping of the exhaust that is pushed aigainst against a moving part while shifting gears? Or do I need to panic now?

Greetings, Mitch

the upper cat heat shield

Thanx for the reply, feel much more comfort now

Exhaust is replaced, tranny problem remains, what really scared the **** out of me is that when my car was on the lift to fix the exhaust, I saw transmission oil leaking out of my tranny on the place were it's bolt up to the block I'm screwed, ain't I... maybe it's getting time for a new car... this thing just stays bugging me with one problem after another

I posted to your other thread. Looks like you have the diffy bearing problem. How many miles do you have on the car?

I had the same problem, i diagnosed it as differnential bearing - and my nissan mechanic buddy said that it was a bearing seized up, either dif. or input shaft bearing - either way I looked at it as an oppertunity to upgrade to 2k1 trans with 40K and get a new clutchnet clutch in preparation for BOOST.

Yep, I'm thinking the same, I have 162 k miles on the car, also it's the first tranny, so I guess it has hold up pretty long for a 95-99 tranny with VLSD... I heard there were a lot of problems with them.

Now my question... can I just bold up a 5th gen tranny to my E-spec 4th gen? If so, I think I'll go for the 6 speed, seems like a good excuse to do that upgrade, that way I'd get the job done right at once.