Quote:
Originally Posted by humfrz
It's my understanding, that the release bearing (throw out bearing), does NOT normally go round and round, when the clutch is NOT depressed .......... 
humfrz |
When we had to manually adjust our clutches there was a spring that pulled the clutch fork towards the disengaged position. We had to maintain a little dead zone to make sure the clutch could fully engage.
With automatically adjusting hydraulic clutches, a spring in the slave cylinder maintains an ever-so-slight pressure on the assembly so the TO bearing spins all the time. It normally lasts just fine because there's no real load on it.
When it's beginning to fail, the bearing sticks in the at-rest position. The squeak goes away when the extra force of depressing the clutch forces it to turn with the pressure plate fingers.
Still, by the time it reaches that point, there's a bunch of heat and wear on the pressure plate fingers while it's squeaking, and way more when the blown bearing is spinning.
OP needs to jump on it like yesterday while he only needs to replace the TO bearing. Any longer and he'll be replacing the pressure plate and the transmission front cover (snout).