I have a 2002 manual Xterra with 114K. We drove it yesterday--even used the 4WD some and had no problems.

This morning when I started it up, it made a strange whirring or grinding sound from under the hood. This only happened as I had the clutch pedal fully pushed in. When I let the pedal out about 1/4 the way, the noise stopped. Then it started again each time I pushed the clutch pedal all the way in.

I've had a clutch go bad before on other cars, but I've never heard it make a sound like this before.

Any ideas?

Thanks