Everytime I start my car, cold or not, and I put it in first, and slowly start accellerating, I hear like a kind of metal griding noise, it usually is only heard in gears 1 -3, but everytime I press the clutch the noise goes away, is it one of the heat shields or can it be something else?

 

heat shield mounts break and start rattling all the time, jack up the car and find out exactly where its coming from then either rip it off or strap it down somehow(make sure to strap it with something that wont melt)

 

Heat shield or possibly a bad transmission mainshaft/input bearing.

 

^^ kinda feeling that second one. heat shields are pretty easy to notice.

 

had the same problem, was the input shaft bearing..

 

how would i know its the input shaft bearing? also the noise doesn't occur every time, depends on uphill,downhill driving, and whether its a left or right turn sometimes doesn't make the noise. or just in general it sometimes doesn't make the noise.

 

take the heat shield off. if it goes away there ya go. this is only to eliminate the heat shield as the noise maker.

push in the clutch at anytime the noise is being made it should go away. if not its something else.

 

so if the noise goes away when i push the clutch its the input bearing? and if it is the input bearing are there any other ways of telling its the input bearing?

 

Let me know what you discover this to be due to. I may be having the exact same problem. I replaced my catalytic converter heat shields and still same problem.

 

I just took two of my heat shields off today, you hear it alot less, but my when i lifted the whole car up, and messed with the exhaust piping it seems to have alot of room to move around, maybe the grinding noise im hearing is coming from that as well. but if your just in neutral and you left off the clutch and here it, and push it and its gone, its def the mainshaft input bearing. theres a DIY i found earlier today, doesnt seem to difficult to do.