Earlier this summer I was coming out of a red light and at around 15 mph all connection from the engine to the wheels seemed to be lost and I coasted to the side of the road where I had to get the car towed home. There were no loud noises or anything leaking out the bottom of the car and the engine still ran perfectly fine. The only tells that something was wrong was the obvoius car not moving even in first gear with the clutch all the way out and then when the car was in gear with the clutch out there was a small rotational grinding noise not very noticeable at all. Also when you would let of the clutch in first and have the weird sound, the speedo would go up to 6mph and the car would think it’s moving even though it wasn’t. We ended up pulling the trans and check the fluid to see a bunch of what looked like small metal spring surrounding the magnetic trans fluid plug. We thought it was the trans that blew up and since no transmission shops wanted to even look at it since these things are impossible to find parts for we just went along with the assumption that something in the transmission went bad. The clutch and clutch plate looked fine but we didn’t take them off to inspect them at all. We just put in another used trans and it’s doing the same exact thing. If anyone could help with this issue any insight would be appreciated, we are currently getting ready to pull the trans out again and check the clutch even though we replaced it two years ago.

 

How do the axles look? It's possible maybe one of the inner sides stripped off, and that was what was on the first drain plug.

The only reason I'm leaning that way is due to you still getting a speedo reading with a different trans. That would at least imply engine through gearing has some connection the VSS is seeing, but nothing from gears through diff to axles.

 

I believe the axles are fine, when the front end is lifted and I let off the clutch it is getting enough power to spin the front wheels slightly.

 

It was just a random thought, would be easier to check before dropping trans again. Might be possible it has enough friction when there is zero load but can't move on the ground.

It still could be the clutch too, 20yrs ago I had an old 3rd gen F-body and it did exactly that. Started in first fine, went to second and nothing. No noticeable noises/bangs just no longer moved.

 

I’ll definently check it out. Will reply with an update if I find anything