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Can't put car in gear...

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ClassicalBor

15+ Year Contributor
158
1
Feb 9, 2006
Baltimore, Maryland
I had my clutch master and slave cylinders replaced a little over a week ago, because they were getting old and I was having rough shifting/grinding into some gears. Original Thought - Clutch not fully disengaging.

Now i've noticed my clutch slipping throughout the gears, and after enough driving, it wont go into gear at ALL unless I start my car in gear.


When I first get in the car in the morning the pedal is nice and soft and shifts almost flawlessly, and engages pretty close to the floor. After driving it for a while, the pressure in the clutch pedal builds up and becomes VERY VERY heavy, and clutch engagement changes to be at the very top of the pedals play.

This is when I notice the clutch start to slip. If I keep driving and come to a complete stop, eventually I wont be able to get my car into gear at all unless I slam it into gear, or turn off the car and restart with it in gear, but even then I cant sometimes get it out of gear or shift to 2nd.

Is it possible that I just need to have the clutch master cylinder bled and readjusted? I feel like theres too much hydraulic pressure and the slave cylinder cant effectively push the clutch fork.

I did do a search and read on some possibilities such as: "If you have to press hard on the pedal, there may be something wrong. Sticking or binding in the pedal linkage, cable, cross shaft, or pivot ball are common causes. Sometimes a blockage or worn seals in the hydraulic system can also cause a hard clutch."

Thought im not sure what the cross shaft/pivot ball are, are they all just parts of the pedal assembly, or do I have a more serious Problem?

(Clutch has 31,000 miles on it, high performance, I think 2,100 lb pressure plate).
 
at first when i read this i start thinking of symptoms of 2g pedal pump up.

but after it starts to slip it should be very easy to get into gear and you are explaining quite the opposite.

i would start by checking to see if all of your transmission bolts are tight. or if you see any uneven gaps between the bellhousing and motor.
 
^ Thanks, I'll get under the car today and check out the bolts/housing.

Anyone else have any other thoughts on this?

One mechanic thinks my clutch might be finished, but I dont. It shifts 100% when I get in the car for the first 10-15 minutes. Why would it become harder to shift when the hydraulic pressure builds up? Makes sense that it might cause the clutch to slip because the pressure is pushing the slave into the fork too much possibly, but why would I not be able to get it into gear? :banghead:

*EDIT*
I did also go back to RRE's site and re-read "2G Pedal Pump-Up." It sounds like what I am having, but I dont really understand everything the way they wrote it out on the site. Could anyone give me a better explaination of what Pump-Up is and details on how I can fix it? Thanks guys.:rocks:

http://www.roadraceengineering.com/clutchandflywheeltech.htm
 
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all bolts are tight, bellhousing has no Gaps.

I suppose it could just be pedal pump-up. Maybe it is possible that too much pressure builds up to a point where the slave is "frozen" and doesnt move at all when the clutch pedal is pushed down which would cause me to no be able to shift gears.

Thoughts?
 
was everything bled correctly?? Check your shifter cables where they connect and run along the top of the tranny, theres 2 of them, check if they are still connected or the bushings may be gone.
could be your clutch fork too.
 
I didn't check my shifter cables, but I imagine they are fine considering it shifts like a brand new car when the pedal is softer and just gets harder as the pedal gets stiffer (pumps up).

My mechanic DID say he thought my clutch fork looked like it may have been a little bent but I may have to check for myself, I know the fork does angle a little towards to driver-side and slave cylinder already.
 
Yeah i've seen this video before :)

But he doesnt cover the upper stop on the pedal (cruise control switch) and RRE is telling me that I might need additional play at the top of the pedal and to adjust the upper stop along with the rod, to a point where my clutch pedal may even be just a bit higher than my brake pedal.

Im not sure if I should try adjusting the clutch pedal inward or outward first.
 
Yeah i've seen this video before :)

But he doesnt cover the upper stop on the pedal (cruise control switch) and RRE is telling me that I might need additional play at the top of the pedal and to adjust the upper stop along with the rod, to a point where my clutch pedal may even be just a bit higher than my brake pedal.

Im not sure if I should try adjusting the clutch pedal inward or outward first.

He DOES tell you what to do with the stop. at about 5:50 he starts talking about it. Go under the dash back the cruise switch out until its backed all the way out but still allow the switch to do its thing. Then adjust the rod clockwise or screwing it into the master cylinder one turn at a time until you can no long push the slave cylinder in by hand. when you hit that point back out half a turn at a time until you can push the slave in again. Then lock the locking nut on the rod and pump the pedal a few times and check if you can still push in the slave cylinder. Now go enjoy your fully functional clutch :D When i first did my master cylinder it confused the heck out of me. Now its like a walk in the park. You'll get it :thumb:
 
I must of not been paying attention when he mentioned the upper-cruisecontrol switch, but thanks for making me aware :)

Im gonna try all this personally myself today when I'm outta work. Last 2 days my car has been back at my mechanic's garage because I told him to check these things out but he said he cant make adjustments... or it doesnt need adjustments... He wants to go ahead and start charging me to take the transmission out and look for bent fork, or even saying I need an entire new Clutch + pressureplate.

If i needed a new clutch/Pressure Plate, im pretty sure I would have a hard time shifting and getting into gear at ALL times, not just when the pedal pumps up. I dont drift forward/clutch doesnt grab when I sit on a flat surface with clutch pedal in and car in 1st gear, that would'a been a sign of a worn out clutch but.

Im not doing anything with the clutch until I do all these adjustments personally. Tired of someone else looking at myself and telling me something that I dont think is the case.

Would ANY of my symptoms sound like a bad clutch to you guys? Because it doesnt to me.

Thanks for the input, yet again.
 
Alright.. I've dealt with clutches time and time again, but I'm no pro. Here are just a few things to check.

Awkwardly crawl under your dash and check the rod that goes to the Master Cly. Push in on the clutch a little and see if there is any movement slack between when you push in on the pedal, and when the rod actually starts to pressurize the Master Cyl. Also check and make sure that the bolt at the end of the whole assembly isn't loose. It's a 12MM nut. If it's loose, you'll have slack in the pedal.

Next, Get a friend to start pumping the clutch. Crawl under the car and watch the shift fork. if it does not move to look like this towards the passenger side ( \ ) Then your system isn't bled correctly.

The Slash is the Clutch Fork. ( / ) is with the BOTTOM that is pushed by the pushrod leaning towards the Driver Side. ( | ) Is straight. ( \ ) Is towards the Passenger side.

It should look like this with the clutch pedal up. ( | ) and should look like this with the cluthc pressed in. ( \ ) So when you press the pedal in, it should look as such. ( | ) - ( \ )

If it looks like this. ( / ) and when you push it in ( | ) Then you are not getting enough distance.

Drive it until it starts doing what you're describing and check again. It may seem great at first when it's working... but when it starts acting up, perform the test again and see if it's changed.

Next, Check your cables. Ensure there are no torn boots or bushings.

Finaly.. clutch. It COULD be bad, who knows? When it warms up, you could be losing friction.

;P hope you understand my little diagram.
 
I do pretty much understand your diagram haha, but shouldn't it be:

( | ) with clutch pedal out
( / ) with clutch pedal in (slave push rod disengaging clutch and moving fork towards passenger side)

looking from front to back.

I just got under the car, and Im in the process of adjusting my clutch master cylinder rod based on the clutch adjustment video from jacks transmissions. However, this is currently what my Slave/Clutch Fork look like when the car is turned off in neutral and not engaged. I think this is a little TOO far to the passenger side no? Could this simply be my problem? Is this the result of too much pressure in the system? Should I just bleed out some of the fluid?

Any more help would be appreciated guys :)
 

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i would pump it up until it gets hard then take a look under there, the pressure in the system that isn't allowed to be relieved should be enough(with out you stepping on the clutch pedal) to keep the fork all the way up going by the view from your pic above.
 
i drove it a bit to get the pedal to pump up pretty hard. but still driveable. I made sure I got it back home before the point of it NOT going into gear.

But i determined myself that the slave rod was pushing the clutch fork too far over to begin with based on the adjustment my mechanic said the pedal should be at. He's done great work for me in the past but I think he just dropped the ball on this one.

I backed up the upper stop on the pedal and threaded the master cylinder rod back a little bit as well so the clutch pedal is just about even with my brake pedal. The clutch fork is centered now when its in its neutral position so its much better. The slave was SO tight before from the adjustment it was causing the pump up and the clutch slipping and not putting in gear.

I havent had it pump up on me at all in 2 days driven probably 75 miles on the new adjustment and its working great. Still engages pretty close to the floor so I might back the pedal up a little bit more, but all it was needing was a pedal adjustment.

Thanks for all the input guys!
 
UPDATE ON THIS:

I think I spoke too soon. The clutch was engaging fine and not pumping up at all. But occasionally I started to notice the car sit rough when at a stop and the shifter in 1st gear... THEN I noticed the clutch seemed to be dragging a bit. Sometimes it drags enough to creep me forward, sometimes it doesnt. My thought = clutch needs to be bled. As if there are airpockets that are not giving me a good push of the slave cylinder rod sometimes, and then a good one the next time.

The only time I can feel this is in 1st or 2nd gear at a low RPM stop. Sometimes I cant get it into 1st gear AT ALL now. It doesnt just grind my synchro and get fall into gear... I can FEEL the shifter grind and not even want to go forward into the gear still, so I drop it into 2nd (which still feels rough and I can feel the vibration/clutch dragging) and drive off from there.

Reverse is also crunching/grinding into gear about 50% of the time now. All other gears seem fine.

I Bled the clutch yesterday got a lot of air bubbles out, but even after a while bottle of brake fluid was flushed through the system (gravity bleed ### I worked by myself) I still noticed some small air bubbles before I had to cap off the bleeder valve because I ran out of brake fluid.

I have messed with my clutch pedal adjustment a few more times with no success, but still confused on how to get this clutch working right like it was a couple months ago.

I have not checked my shifter cables/bushings. What should I look for when doing that exactly, if anyone has a pic of bad symptoms it could help.

One of my other thoughts is that, all the adjustments that I have made to the clutch pedal were just making it worse. I set it exactly like Jack's Trans tell me with no success so I fiddled with it more, and probably let even more air in the system. Maybe I need to run through 3 bottles or more of brake fluid and do the adjustment right then and there and stop. Who Knows. :mad:

EDIT: I also do not think its my synchros. I have two friends that have broken 3rd gear synchros and have driven on them for the last 3-4 years, it grinds every time but still falls into gear. They just dont care about their cars LOL. Also because 1st gear only seems to grind it maybe 1 out of every 20-30 shifts. Reverse is 50/50 though.
 
Well reverse has no synchro, it has what I belive is called an output shaft(correct me if i'm wrong) and reverse has been known to give trouble to a lot of people in these cars. To not get it to grind what I do is let out the clutch, put it in first gear, then reverse without letting clutch out. If it doesn't fully go into reverse I repeat until it does. First gear is tricky in some cars as well. I have had my fair share of clutch problems. My 98 talon I had did the same thing as your describing except every gear grinded but then I somehow sold the car while it had this problem.
 
Ive done a series of the regular fixes and suggestions, I think I might just be missing one thing or doing something wrong myself. I need to back out my clutch pedal adjustment because I JUST notice that the slave cylinder rod is back to hanging on the passenger side again. I need to get that centered out. I have looked inside my bell housing where the rubber boot on around the slave fork is and it doesn't appear that the fork is bottoming out on the bell housing, or that its bent (hard to tell if it bends anyways, I hear they just break instead of bend).
 
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:::UPDATE:::

I have adjusted the pedal, bled the clutch, and readjusted the pedal after the bleed, and still having the same issue. Feels like nothing changed.

With the help of a friend, I was able to get about 99% of the bubbles out of my clutch lines. It took about 30 minutes but we stopped because the last 6-10 pumps/bleeds of the clutch slave showed NO bubbles in the line as the fluid was pushed through.

I noticed that I cant get my clutch release fork to stay centered in the boot on my transmission. If I adjust my pedal so that the fork is centered, then I cannot move the shifter into gear, the car will start the creep on me as i push the shifter towards 1st. So if I go clockwise inward on the master cylinder rod (pedal moves upwards more towards driver) to where it can get it into gear rough, I go back and look at the release fork and its almost all the way to the passenger side already.

In regards to Jack's Transmissions proper clutch adjustment... I can still push in the slave cylinder rod with my finger so thats okay, but the fork is sitting almost all the way to the passenger side in its "neutral" position.

Is this what could be causing all my stupid problems? A Bad clutch fork, or a fork that needs to be shimmed? My biggest concern is cost. I dont exactly consider myself the expert to take off my bell housing to shim my pivot ball behind the clutch fork, but I also do not have the extra cash to be charged $90 an hour to have a dealer remove my bell housing to replace the clutch fork. If anyone knows if I have a different problem/possible solution please let me knows!
 
In all honesty, if I were you I would do it myself. Me and my buddy did a clutch job and we're 17 year old kids in a house garage and managed to do it just fine. It was a GREAT learning experience and I would definatly recomend doing it yourself to save yourself money, and get some experience.:thumb:
 
thing is, I dont want to. I dont get a lot of free time anymore, and if it requires me losing my car for a few days to take off the bell housing and work on something im not all familiar with, i'll just lose time and money :rolleyes:

If Anyone else can confirm if I need to shim my clutch fork AND if that is doable simply from the hole where the clutch fork stick out if I remove the boot would be extremely helpful.

Also any other possibly symptoms anyone things I should check out.

Would my grinding into 1st/reverse/rough shifting have anything to do with the following:

- Tranny Fluid
- Shift cable bushings
- missing a bolt on the back end (drivers side) of my slave cylinder that attaches to the tranny. (see picture link below) Would this cause my slave to move backwards and allow full disengagement of the clutch even with the other bolts fastened?

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/att...ve-clutch-bleeding-help-pic-slavecylinder.jpg
 
RESOLVED:

In case anyone else was having this same issue, I know a few of the people that commented/posted said that they has a similar problem, I just found the issue.

Clutch Release Forks CAN bend before they break, and the clutch fork in my tranny had a bent arm. Which means it was causing the throw out bearing to move sort of at an angle and not fully depressing the pressure plate and disengaging the clutch. Causing my grinding issues and not getting into gear issues.

Also: the DSM tech that showed me this also mentioned that the throw out bearing did not appear to have been replaced when my Clutch was replaced at 90,000 miles, the mechanic that did that job used the same OLD ORIGINAL TOB like a newb. This was also causing some issues. :ohdamn:

I can get a picture of the Clutch Fork tomorrow when I pick it up. The only thing I am worried about is if driving on it like this the last month has done too much damage to my synchros in 1st/reverse :hmm:
 
I Doubt any damage was done. Just slide the shifter towards 1st without the clutch pressed in. If the engine starts to bog, your synchros (sink-rows..Lol) are fine.

Glad you figured out the issue though!
 
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