A Nasty Grinding Noise

Alright so while I was running around town my car started to growl/ make a grinding noise. It sounds like it is coming from the drivers side possibly from the transmission but not sure. The sound reminds me of when you are chopping up ice in the blender and it just keeps on grinding away. I have a 94 metro with about 173K miles on it. It's the 3 cyclinder with the manual transmission. If someone could help me out that would be great. Thanks.

Ideas:
bad wheel bearing, jack up car and grab wheel and try and move it up and down/side to side.
Brake pad came off its backing plate/brakes are worn down to the pads backing plate.
Pull off tires and inspect brakes.
did you ever notice anything strange with the brake peddel?
start like I discribed and post back.
You will most likley find bad pads.

So I went through and checked out everything and it all works as it should. By the way what does the wheel bearing and brake pads have to do with it if the noise is coming from the engine? That is where the noise has been coming from. I wasn't sure until I popped the hood and checked where it was coming from. It was making this noise the loudest when I was just parked and sometimes when I was just getting going. It never made it when I was cruising down the street.

sounds like something in the tranny like throwout bearing or dry tranny if its coming from that end of engine. if its coming from belt end it could be alternator or timing belt idler

It's not coming from the belt end, because when I popped the hood it was clearly coming from the drivers side. What is a throwout bearing? And is it an easy fix? Also what is a dry tranny and is that easy to fix? Obviously neither of these things are good for the car, so what is the best way to go about fixing them? If this noise happens to be one of the things that were listed. Any help for this would be greatly appreciated.

is the car a manual tranny or automatic? the stuff i mentioned only affects a manual transmission. throwout bearing is inside the bellhousing and you have to remove the tranny to fix it, dry transmission means its out of oil and needs to be filled. there is a plug on the side of the transmission next to where the drivers side axle comes out of the tranny. the fluid level should be even with the bottom of that hole. pull the filler plug out and put your finger in the hole to feel where level is or take it to a oil change place and have them check it

I have the manual transmission with about 173K miles on it.

Definitely sounds like a throw out bearing. Called a clutch release bearing in a Metro.?.?

I had a 76 Stingray with a Muncie M22 "Rockcrusher" that I installed and the throw out bearing went out in it. Could've been from the hard shifting :grinyes:
It did the same thing with the nasty grinding noise coming from the bell housing.

But once you drop the tranny it's very straight forward on replacing them.