clutch wont disengage

jgriffith86 · Feb 12, 2006

I have a 93 talon and i bought a jdm tranny with my motor and i cannot get the clutch to disengage. I bought a new clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder, welded the clutch pedal, have a new 2600 clutch and act flywheel, shimmed the pivot ball, bought a new clutch extension rod, stainless steel clutch line and have blead the crap out of it and nothing works. Every time i push the clutch in and try to put it in gear it just grinds and wont even start to go into gear. Please dont tell me to search because thats all i have been doing i just want to find out whats wrong before i spend any more money. Please help.

Thanks.

DSMvroom · Feb 12, 2006

Just a thought, but some people swear by it . . . have you bled the slave cylinder also?

Does the clutch feel like a 2600 when you press on it? Or does it feel more like an OEM one, or one that isn't even there at all?

PaulN · Feb 12, 2006

Hard to say. Are you sure the tranny ever worked? Do you have another transmission? It's a crap shoot with anything used so who knows what the deal is. Will the car go into gear with the engine off? If in gear and you push the clutch in, (with the engine off) can you move the vehicle? Basically is the clutch disengaging enough to allow the car to coast with the engine off?

Sounds like you have covered everything I would have thought of. The new extension rod, is it longer then the factory rod? I have read that the after market clutches sometimes require a longer rod to fully disengage the clutch. I have also read about shimming the slave cylinder to give it more action.

Other than that, if you have another transmission you might be stuck swapping it out if you're not sure the tranny you bought ever worked. :talon:

StealthXtreme4 · Feb 12, 2006

Definitely have to look into the internals of the transmission and make sure it isn't crap, if you've done everything externally....

ONE THING I DIDN'T SEE, was the clutch adjustment. Make sure the clutch pedal is adjusted out... ( the extension you mentioned ) would probably negate this, but it was just a thought... ( not sure if the DSM'S have this.. The VR-4 does... )

Anyways, if you're positive it's not internals, check to make sure there is no binding against the tranny and engine... Remove the bolts rotate it around a bit and make sure everything slides on correctly.... ( sometimes they can bind up, causing a lot of issues... in worst case, the motor won't even turn )

jgriffith86 · Feb 12, 2006

I am sure the trany is good it goes in and out of gear fine with the car off but when its running it wont go into gear. I have bled the slave cyl. One thing that i noticed when i pulled the trany to shim the pivot ball is the fingers on the pressure plate are not angled out towards you they point straight towards each other. Has anyone ever got a bad pressure plate?

jgriffith86 · Feb 12, 2006

I forgot to add the the clutch is adjusted all the way out.
Thanks

jeremy19984g63 · Feb 12, 2006

i had this happen to me once. It was the aftermarket clutch. I got a different one and fixed the problem. Being that it is act, i dont think this is your problem though.

Marc91GSX · Feb 12, 2006

jgriffith86 said:
One thing that i noticed when i pulled the trany to shim the pivot ball is the fingers on the pressure plate are not angled out towards you they point straight towards each other. Has anyone ever got a bad pressure plate?

When the pressure plate is torqued down the tabs will flatten out alittle, so if you remove the tranny stick your line up tool in and loosen the bolts holding the pressure plate down. If the tabs do not move back out then you probably have a bad pressure plate. Also you need to check the movement of the clutch fork. A buddy of mine purchased a JDM tranny and the back of the clutch fork would make contact with the tranny before it fully disengaged the clutch. He solved the problem by putting an 1/8" (.125") shim behind the pivot ball which moved the fork pivot closer to the transmission. Not sure of the life of that fix but it worked.

I also didn't notice whether or not you are using a new or resurfaced flywheel. If you are using a resurfaced flywheel that could be your problem as well. The range of motion on your clutch fork is limited and if enough material was taken off the flywheel then that could result in a clutch not disengaging as well.

Good luck on finding out what your problem is and let us know what it was when you get it fixed.

Dream On · Feb 12, 2006

my car is doing the same thing, except mine is a Spec Stage III. I've replaced everything...

i1nk83 · Feb 12, 2006

Sounds to me like the pressure plate might be defective, or have something behind it. I had the same problem with my shitty oem disk. One of the rubber things around the springs broke off and lodged itself behind the p.p. and wouldnt let it disingage. We pulled the tranny and all the "fingers" of the pp were pointed towards each other, no slightly outward like they should.

Dream On · Feb 12, 2006

I sent my clutch back to the factory and they said it was ok, so maybe the problems we're having doesn't involve the clutch at all. And my brand new flywheel (Fidanza) was stepped to the right height, which they also checked out. Not trying to jack your thread, just trying to think of other solutions.

jgriffith86 · Feb 12, 2006

I have a brand new act street light flywheel i was wandering the same thing if it was stepped right. Has anyone ever had a problem like that? I think i am going pull the trany back reinstall the clutch and check the step.

Cool Mr Steve · Feb 12, 2006

How did this sequence of events go... Did you install the clutch along with all the other things you listed and the clutch just never worked? If so, did you start adjusting the clutch with it backed all the way out? It seems as though if you installed a shim behind the pivot ball and installed a longer slave rod, then tried to disengage the clutch with the pedal adjusted all the way out you could have engaged the pressure plate fingers too far. Hopefully this is not the case because it would mean your pressure plate is toast, but if your pressure plate fingers look as though they aren't pointing where they should you may be in a world of hurt. Good luck.

Dream On · Feb 12, 2006

Wait, so how should the pedal be adjusted when you install the clutch? Cause my new clutch is coming in and I want to make sure not to screw it up in case that is what happened last time.

jgriffith86 · Feb 12, 2006

This is the order that i installed the parts.
First new clutch and flywheel and ss line
Second new master and slave cyl
third longer rod
forth welded the pedals
fifth shimed the pivot ball

after each step nothing worked the pedal still had play at the top. The only two things that i put on it that seemed to help were the shims behind the pivot ball and welding the pedal. Also in between each step i blead the clutch. I dont think that i would of ever engaged the fingers too far because the pedal was never strong enough. The only time it felt like i was pushing on anything was after the shims and it still had play at the top of the
pedal.

Cool Mr Steve · Feb 13, 2006

How much did you shim the pivot ball? I'm sure you probably already checked this, but just in case you didn't here is a bit of info from RRE:

Road Race Engineering said:
When the transmission is first installed in the car and just bolted down to the motor, this is the time to check the wear on the arm and ball. Look at where the arm protrudes out through the square boot on the front lower bell housing. With the arm pushed over towards the passenger side so that the release bearing is just touching the clutch, the arm should be either in the center of the square hole or towards the driver's side of center line. If the arm is sitting off towards the passenger side, you need to pull the transmission back out and add a washer or two. This gets things back in line. If you don't, the hydraulics in trying to take up all the extra slack, will push the arm over and bottom out on the inner bell housing. If you are fighting clutch adjustment problems on an existing clutch install, get under the car and check this out. If you remove a crossmember to see it better, you can pull off the rubber boot and look in the bell housing with a flash light while an assistant pushes on the clutch pedal. You may see the arm hitting the inner bell housing.

jgriffith86 · Feb 13, 2006

I checked that mine angles off toward the drivers side after two washers.

Dream On · Feb 13, 2006

Mine is angled toward the driver's side as well. My order of doing things was this:

flywheel
clutch
shimmed pivot ball
ss line
master
slave
welded pedals
longer rod

slugsgomoo · Feb 13, 2006

is the flywheel stepped properly?

Dream On · Feb 13, 2006

Sent mine to Spec, and they checked it out, and it was already stepped to the right height for their clutch.

Cool Mr Steve · Feb 13, 2006

I'm running out of ideas. Damn, if you guys did everything correctly (adjusted the pedal, bled the system, stepped the flywheel, shimmed the pivot, etc.) you may want to remove the rectangular rubber boot that surrounds the fork (in the picture in my last post) and look through the hole with a flashlight to verify that nothing is moving if it shouldn't be and that everything is moving that should be. I saw two posts in the past where people were having the same problem as you, and they looked through that hole and saw that the entire pressure plate was moving toward the flywheel when the clutch was being pushed. This means that the pressure plate wasn't torqued down correctly. Check it out and we'll go from there.

Dream On · Feb 13, 2006

I did that as well. I looked up and the fork was moving the fingers, though I'm not sure how far they should be moving towards the flywheel.

g63tawd · Feb 13, 2006

I had the same problem and had to make a new master cylinder rod with a longer throw. Just extended it a couple of inches and haven't seen a problem with it since.

Dream On · Feb 13, 2006

hmm, there's an idea...but I still wonder why this is happening.

g63tawd · Feb 13, 2006

Yeah I was think of trying to use a bigger master cylinder for more capacity but then decide to extend the throw on the rod. I could feel that it was just at the limit of disengageing but not quite there, so I figured if I had a little more pedal I could get the clutch to fully disengage and I did. Talk about a sense of accomplishment. I did the same thing and scoured the forums and couldn't come up with anything then decided to engineer something on my own. If you need any more info let me know.

The Central Hub for DSM Community and Information

clutch wont disengage

jgriffith86

DSMvroom

PaulN

StealthXtreme4

jgriffith86

jgriffith86

jeremy19984g63

Marc91GSX

Dream On

i1nk83

Dream On

jgriffith86

Cool Mr Steve

Dream On

jgriffith86

Cool Mr Steve

Attachments

jgriffith86

Dream On

slugsgomoo

Dream On

Cool Mr Steve

Dream On

g63tawd

Dream On

g63tawd

Similar threads

Latest posts

Build Thread Updates

Vendor Updates

Latest Classifieds