1G Clutch not releasing issue. I am out of ideas.

[Purple_T63]

Okay so basically I installed a ACT 2600 with a act 6 puck Sprung clutch and a streetlite flywheel along with some ARP flywheel bolts (I believe the 30mm but I am not 100% sure)

I recently cracked the casing of my Transmission so I decided to change the clutch while changing transmissions. I had a non turbo galant FWD transmission in the car ever since I got it and swapped it with a 91+ turbo FWD unit. I also put in a competition fork and changed the pivot ball and put 1 shim under it. And I alos changed out the throw out bearing (Everything came from RTM racing) I had to change out the shifter base, shifter cables and brackets to make it work so this ruled out a potential trouble source out.

Now the issue I am having here is ever since I changed the clutch it doesnt want to disengage. The clutch is dragging and not letting me get into gear when the car is running. When its off all the gears go in good.

Here are all the things I tried to fix the issue and I am still having this problem.

Bled the clutch (15+ times)

Changed clutch line to full SS line

Changed master cylinder

Changed slave cylinder with an old OEM one I had laying arround

Extended slave pushrod 5mm at a time (extended it so much we weren't able to put it on)

Took transmission off again and opened it everything looked good. Nothing broken or bent.

Checked to make sure clutch was on correctly

Adjusted the master cylinder rod.

Changed out the clutch pedal bushing for a brass one and tightened the bolt on like a mad man.

At this point nobody arround me knows what it could be. I asked many long time dsm'ers and we are all at a loss.

Couple things to note of, when we installed the clutch the 1st time and I first pressed on the clutch pedal, we heard a loud *click* noise and it was the C shaped clip on the throwout bearing thelat broke off. We changed it with a OEM one and it never did it again.

Also, when ever I turn the car on (in neutral) and push on the shifter to put it into 1st gear with the clutch pressed fully, and slowly let go of the clutch while still pushing the shifter into gear at about the half way point the gear pops in almost but fully but grinds.

I tried ajusting the master rod to no avail.

Also when ever I don't max out the master cylinder rod and I press on the clutch fully it doesn't come back all the way. There is anout half an inch of play that I can pull on with my hand. But when I pull on the pedal the master rod doesn't move with the pedal. The weird thing is when I press it again the rod moves with the pedal the whole way down...

Let me know if you need any more info I tried so many things I am sure im forgetting something.

 

[97egl]

But when I pull on the pedal the master rod doesn't move with the pedal.

Based off of this you need to repair the pedal bracket assembly. The rod that runs across has 2 flat spots on it which key into a hole with 2 flats on the arm that the master rod attaches to. These become worn out and will cause reduced clutch throw. You were probably fine with the lightweight non-turbo clutch but the pressure that the 2600 has is significantly more. Tightening the bolt on the end like a mad man unfortunately won't solve anything there is just so much pressure it will always allow the arm to slip once it is worn out.

The repair most do for this is to weld the arm to the shaft and that solves the issue. This means you'll need to remove the whole pedal bracket unless it's a car you don't care about. I have gotten a mig gun up there and booger welded one together because it was just a winter beater and I didn't give a crap about it. Sounds like you've already had the bracket out if you replaced the bushings tho so should be easier the 2nd time.... and its nice you've got new bushings in there cuz once you weld it you can't replace them without cutting/grinding

Others may have found better solutions by now but this was what I did about 5 years ago and seemed to be what everyone else was doing

 

[dwb]

Air bubble trapped in the slave cylinder.
Bleed it again. Only this time when you have the bleeder valve open, with your hand push the clutch fork all the way into the slave as far as it will go (you want to bottom out the slave piston), hold it, close the bleeder, release. Repeat another time or two.

 

[chrisman287]

Air bubble trapped in the slave cylinder.
Bleed it again. Only this time when you have the bleeder valve open, with your hand push the clutch fork all the way into the slave as far as it will go (you want to bottom out the slave piston), hold it, close the bleeder, release. Repeat another time or two.

Would it be better to remove it, leave the line attached and push it in or will pushing with the clutch fork suffice?

I have a feeling this is my issue too. This is like the third post on this issue in the last week it must be something in the air.

 

[1990TSIAWDTALON]

I crack the slave bleeder and push the slave rod back into the cylinder to get all of the air out. Just another way of doing it.

 

[dwb]

Would it be better to remove it, leave the line attached and push it in or will pushing with the clutch fork suffice?

I'm sure there are many ways to do it, but I prefer to bleed it "normally" and then at the end push the slave in by hand while the clutch pedal is fully depressed. The fork should have enough movement to bottom the slave piston.

 

[Purple_T63]

Okay so I welded the pedal assembly. Changed the master cylinder and adjusted it. Going to bleed at see if it works today.

I forgot to mention this last time but when I installed the clutch the 1st time with the wrong cables and shifter base, etc. We needed to get the car to drive just to get to my place and when we maxed out the master cylinder rod all the way we managed to get the car to drive but only my 1st and 3rd gear would go in. It wasn't smooth at all but it worked. This got me thinking, could this just be a case of my master cylinder rod not having enough thread's to push enough fluid to the slave? Could it be a bad slave? Just throwing ideas in case todays fixes don't work. I did get a 2g master cylinder to use the rod from in case this was the issue.

 

[We're on Boost]

This got me thinking, could this just be a case of my master cylinder rod not having enough thread's to push enough fluid to the slave?

That's what it was on my car (1990 Talon). Take a look at post #4 in my build thread for how it got fixed.
That was with a new ACT 2700 clutch (everybody else still calls it the 2600, ACT calls it an MB1-XTSS) and a new ACT streetlite flywheel.
My old slave worked ok for about 3 years after that, and then that had to be replaced, but it failed kind of sudden - complete failure, clutch pedal to the floor.
My master cylinder never did fail but I replaced it preemptively at the same time as the slave cylinder.

 

[Purple_T63]

Alright so I finally managed to get to the end of this. I tried the bleeding methods the you guys suggested and it did help. I found out I didn't have a OEM slave cylinder since the OEM rebuild kit I used has a different sized piston and it kept leaking fluid since it was too small for the bore of the slave.

I ended up putting a OEM slave cylinder I had and changed my master cylinder with a NON-OEM one.
After bleeding nothing changed.

We also welded the pedal assembly ij between the master cylinder change and it didn't fix the issue.

What ended up working was the adjustment on the master cylinder that I thought I had maxed out as far as you should put it, but I has maybe 4-5 turns in it and just that little more was the fix for my issue.

Now I cant say for sure if this was my issue the whole or if it was a combination of all the little things that added up to the fix but all that matters is its fixed now. Time to start getting the tune dialed in !

A new issue popped up whit it now, my reverse doesn't go in now. Sometimes it does but it pops out. 1st gear also pops out if don't hold the shifter so I think this could all be the worn synchros I saw when we took apart the transmission.

Let me know if anyone needs a small recap of this whole thing if you are having a similar issues

Thanks everyone for the help !

 

[dwb]

Syncros only help with engagement and will not cause it to pop out of gear. Possibly you are not fully engaging into gear and the fix is to adjust your shifter cables and/or replace shifter/shift linkage bushings so you get the max shifter throw. Another possibility is you have lost a poppet ball/spring.

 

[Vegas Smith]

Yeah, sometimes you have to max out master cylinder rod even when everything is "done right" in the system. I had to do that yesterday.

 

[Purple_T63]

Syncros only help with engagement and will not cause it to pop out of gear. Possibly you are not fully engaging into gear and the fix is to adjust your shifter cables and/or replace shifter/shift linkage bushings so you get the max shifter throw. Another possibility is you have lost a poppet ball/spring.

I have some 1990 cables in it right now and also changed up the bushing for solid brass bushing on the shifter base. I will try some 1991 shifter cables and put some skateboard style bushings on the cable ends.
As for the adjustments they should be good I checked them twice and I use the full motion from the shifter base.

As for the detent balls/springs I have all of them but can they wear out over time? I have some spare ones from a blown transmission I could put in it if that's the case.

 

[We're on Boost]

I have some 1990 cables in it right now ..... I will try some 1991 shifter cables

Yeah changing the cables might help. We did this on my car when I went from 1990 shifter to 1991+ shifter, with also a 1991+ transmission. I don't know if we really needed to do it though. We just did it.