200TQ grinding noise?

[P. Stegawski]

I decided to throw this question at the list, before I tear my car apart.
I checked the archives and found a couple things but none really answered
my question. So here it is...

The patient here is my 90 200 TQ with 150K. As far as I know the clutch is
original. Driving it home one evening, I went on a 270 degree turn
(freeway onramp), after which the cluch pedal seems to vibrate when it is
depressed. When the car is sitting still and out of gear there is a
relatively faint "grinding" noise coming from the bellhousing area. When
the clutch pedal is pressed, even a little bit, there is a strong
vibration on it(high amplitude, low frequency), that causes the whole car
to shake. Grinding noise gets worse.
Throw out bearing is the usuall suspect, but why would this start
after a turn, when I wasn't even pressing in the clutch. Could this
be another bearing that went out due to oil starvation when I was coming
around the turn? I plan on doing the rear main seal, clutch, and TOB when
everything is appart. I saw in the archives that I should also replace the
pilot bearing, but I'm not sure what that is. The rear main seal is
already leaking, but the clutch seemed fine to me before this happend all
of a sudden.

Any and all help is appreciated,

Thanks,

Peter
90 200 TQ
91 Passat(for the time being)