Let me bounce this off you gentlemen.

My friend brings me his trusty and slightly rusty 95 Legacy wagon, AWD, 5spd, 277K, runs like a top, after an apparent all the sudden clutch failure. As in he get's off the interstate, clutch in, downshift, clutch out and there is nothing, free reving.
Says him anyway.

I verify, hear a funny noise, pull trans and well, the friction disk has ripped away totally from the hub, as in sheared the metal at the rivits inside the hub, nasty. I've never seen this on a stock car, and only a time or two on modified stuff that was being beat on hard. He's not a hard driver, and the car is stock, and weak anyway.

So new clutch goes in, the original was a cheap small exedy, the replacement Valeo has a much more beefy hub, goes back together fine, I drain and refill the trans since half the gear oil ran out, fire it up, take off and the trans is screaming.
Sounds to me like an input shaft bearing, it's not just whining either, it's groaning and grinding slightly. Can hear it pretty low at idle in N, clutch in and it quests down. Increases in pitch as speed increases in every gear, decel in gear off throttle is very loud.

My only guess is the input shaft got bound up or knocked sideways when the boom happened, my other less likely thought was maybe the trans locked up and IT broke the clutch in the split second, but I doubt that one.

Thoughts? The car isn't worth fixing really, but it's a shame it runs so well and has done the miles it has. I'm vaguely entertaining the idea of replacing the input shaft and bearing.
Replacement used trans are not plentiful around here thus far.

__________________
One more Radar Lover gone...
1982 VW Caddy diesel 406K 1.9L AAZ
1994 E320 195K