Ok, I just took apart my tranny from my 90 Civic Si for what I thought was just a bad input shaft bearing. I was getting the knocking sound at idle that would go away when pressing in the clutch, but i also was getting a continuous grinding sound mostly in 1st gear. Well at least at first it was only in 1st gear but got progressivly worse and I was hearing it from1st through 4th gears when I had enough and pulled it out. I took apart the tranny and was inspecting the differential. The gears seem to have a good amount of play in them and make a very similar noise to what I was hearing when you spin one of the side gears. My question is: is this normal or not? The pin for the spider gears had very minimal movement, almost none, but the side gears are able to be moved side to side pretty easily, and also if you put even a slight load on the gear sideways with your finger pressing the splines and try to spin it the diff will just lock up and not freewheel. How much play is normal and also should the gears be grinding like they are while spinning one of the side gears or should they not make much noise at all? Thanks for any help, sorry for the long post but I tried to explain it as much as I could.

 

Anyone?????

 

Oh I forgot, the grinding noise I would hear while driving would only happen in gear. If i stepped on the clutch or put it in neutral while moving the noise would stop. Makes me think the diff is fine but I want to be sure before I put it back together. Someone HAS to know. Thanks