Drove from Essex to Cardiff on friday and halfway round the M25 the gearbox started making a noise (sort of noise cars make in reverse)

It only does this in 5th gear so today I drove most the way home in 4th at 55mph.

Any thoughts? engine is the 1.6 as fitted to a 2001 felcia fun and now on 83k.

The 5th gear retaining nuts have come loose, it's fairly common, can be repaired with the gearbox still in the car by a removing the end casing from the transmission case.. There is a nut on each shaft and it's worth replacing them both and torquing them up to the value whilst sits all apart, the nuts are best bought from the skoda dealer. Hope this helps.

Torque both nuts at 60 Nm.

Thats a great help thanks. Will pass that on to my spanner man