Strange 5-Speed 164LS Noise

[Adam Rodnitzky <arodnitzky@domain.elided>]

Hi everyone,

Today on my way to work, my LS started making a
strange noise after taking two (fairly) hard right
turns. The noise, at first, was a high-pitched
whirr...something like a combination of an electric
motor/the sound of ignition-generated interference
coming through your radio/a kazoo. The pitch was in
relation to road speed, not engine speed, which makes
me initially think it's in the driveline. The
driveability was in no way affected, however. I could
also feel vibration both through the gearshift and
steering wheel. After getting to work (~2 miles after
this happened), I shut down the car, put in my 9
hours, and got back into the now fully cooled down
car. I pondered having the car towed, but decided to
see if the car's behavior was different when fully
cool. I took off gingerly, and the noise immediately
came back. I noticed, this time, however, that when
depressing the clutch, the volume of the noise
increased -- this was not the case before. After
making this discovery, I then depressed the clutch
twice in rapid succession, and -- like magic -- the
noise disappeared completely! I came to a stoplight,
stopped fully, and started again. Upon starting, there
was now a different sound -- but very distant this
time. It sounded like the noise made by putting a
playing card in your bicycle spokes (remember that?).
On accelerating, the noise would cycle slowly. On
deceleration, the frequency seemed to multiply 5 or 6
times. I drove the 5 miles home slowly and carefully.
The noise persisted, and did not get better or worse.
Again, the car showed no sign of driveability problems
-- ie, did not pop out of gears, was not slower or
hesitating, clutch and all gears engaged smoothly...
I'm going to drain and refill the trans this weekend
(currently running Swepco oil and car has 125K miles
on it), check the wheel bearings for play, inspect the
CV joints and the bearing that carries the longer
halfshaft (it has one of these, right?). 
Anyone want to offer other things to check, thoughts
or diagnosis? It's much appreciated.

Adam
'94 164LS
'70 Triumph Spitfire (the daily driver -- for now)
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided