I own a 98.5 CSVT. I am having some sort of problem within the transaxle. My local Ford dealer took $80 from me to tell me that it might be the clutch but they don't know. I have purchased a Ford service manual off of eBay but still have not had much luck. Here are the symptoms. With the clutch fully depressed, I will hear a whirring/whinning noise in any gear range. In other words, say I want to shift into 1st gear. I depress the clutch and slide the shifter over towards 1st. The noise will happen without being fully engaged. The car will actually begin to move when doing that as well. I checked for the same noise without using the clutch and the car started to move but no noise. It actually allowed me to fully engage 1st. Also, shifting into every gear now requires more effort but not extreme effort. Any thoughts and/or advice would be extremely appreciated. Thanks.
Jeff
cleanslatewallpaper@yahoo.com 
