A noise to worry about?

[waweeks]

This morning (first day below 30 degrees F that I've driven my 'new' 89' Carrera), I got a strange noise backing out of the garage and for about 4-500 yards of driving.

I put the car in reverse, backed out of garage, and when I put it in neutral and let the clutch out there was a kind of low squeeling noise (sounded like the intermediate shaft spinning in a gearbox w/o oil), figuring that the tranny oil had just 'settled' as there are no leaks, I put it in first and drove off slowly and the noise continued to the end of the block, then eventually disapeared. This has never happened before.

The gearbox shifted normally the entire drive and all symptoms had dissapeared by the end of the block. The car hadn't been driven for about 5 days of cold weather. The car has 70k on it and appears to have been a pampered vehicle in and out. orig clutch.

Any ideas what this noise might be? anything to worry about?

Thanks in advance!

[na2ub]

Sounds like it might be clutch time for you. Next time you hear it. Try pushing the clutch in and out, with the car in neutral. I suspect the squealing will differ, or only appear with the clutch in. This would point fingers at the thow-out bearing wearing out. At 70K, you might want to at least start thinking about replacing the clutch anyway.

[waweeks]

thanks for the reply na2ub. Actually, the noise was only with the clutch out and the clutch still feels strong by all the conventional tests (i.e. 2nd gear start, 2nd gear/parking brake kill test).