I get to drop my tranny to investigate a weird rattle.

Background:
Last year when I was draining the 5 speed I found half of a C clip on the magnetic plug. The other half was not in the oil so its either still in the pan or ground into 10,000,000 particles. This rattle happens when i'm moving in gear, both with the clutch in and out. Also, it happens when stopped in neutral and the clutch is released. (Edit: It does not rattle in neutral with clutch depresed wether moving or not.)

I'm hoping its the input shaft bearing and not something deeper in the guts of the thing. The noise was there but quiet for a long time. It's suddenly gotten notably louder so its time for major surgery very soon.

Does my diagnosis sound right so far? Motovate me! I've been procrastinating on this for a long time.

 

I'm not a mechanic, but that sounds pretty good to me. I can see how a broken c-clip could cause one of the gears to movee to much, loosening things up, and causing a rattle. My concern would be why the rattle gradually developed instead of being noticeable as soon as the clip broke. I would think that would mean something, liek a bearing, finally wore too much. When I rebuilt the tranny on my Explorer I got the kit from www.drivetrain.com .