New (used) TSi AWD

[Madcow1041]

I bought another car. No more 420a, naturally aspired stuff.

The car that I bought has 91,000 miles on it and is a 97. I bought it for $3500. He was originally asking $5000 but I got him down because I brought the car to my friends shop to give me an estimate for repairs. Very good buy, I think

Anyhow, my most recent thread spoke about one of the problems that the car has, but I'll reiterate: the clutch pedal sticks. Not on left turns, just randomly. I highly doubt it's crankwalk because there are no other symptoms that relate to it. I took a look at the clutch resevoir and the fluid is low and looks like crap. Master cylinder was replaced recently; it looks brand new. Could it be the slave cylinder? Or a bad clutch?

I'm just trying to see as many possibilities as I can so I may not have to take the transmission out. What are your opinions???

 

[FastGS-T]

well since you look to be modding the car anyways, go ahead and put a clutch in it and replace the slave cylinder... if the master cylinder needed replacing, then you probably need to replace the slave cylinder also.... but before all that just try bleeding the clutch

 

[Sick Boy]

I agree with FastGS-T. Bleed the clutch first and if that don't work. Look at getting a new clutch set up. A 2100 would work well in a 2g with a 7 bolt.

 

[GSTinCO]

I agree to try bleeding the clutch first but also have someone push the pedal and check the hard lines, I have seen a couple get kinked and have tiny pinholes in them. This could be your culprit but it could be a multitued of things. Good Luck and look the the cheapest part first. Don't just go throwing money at it, you got a hell of a deal.

 

[Dream On]

I would say the slave is the problem. Check to see if its leaking by pulling back the rubber boot on it. Thats usually a pretty good sign that its bad.

 

[Madcow1041]

Thanks loads for your input, guys. This weekend I'll bleed the clutch, check the slave cylinder, and check the hard line. Hopefully it's one of those, although if the clutch itself is the problem, well then the clutch has to be done obviously.

There's one other smaller issue (I hope). I hooked the BOV line back up to recirculate the air because I had a low idle issue. It didn't fix it. One theory I have is that it's one of (or all of) the belts. When I start the car up, they squeek like crazy, then they stop, and then after a few minutes the car smells like a burnt pencil eraser. My father said that the belts seemed a little tight. Could this be the culprit?

 

[tsi4tmo]

My belts squeal like crazy as well. I ordered a new harmonic balancer today, 101.90 before tax(employee price). The harmonic balance is also known as the crank shaft pully. It is held on by four bolts that would be my first guess for the belt problem.

 

[Defiant]

My belts squeal like crazy as well. I ordered a new harmonic balancer today, 101.90 before tax(employee price).

Yowtch! Next time, phone up San Rafael Mitsubishi.
Flush the daylights out of that clutch system, and bleed it several times over a couple of weeks. May save you a cylinder job.

 

[Madcow1041]

I just finished bleeding the clutch.

Didn't help too much with the sticking. It may or may not be the slave cylinder. I have a few ideas on what it might be.

1) Bad master cylinder - There's two or three inches of play before the actual clutch does anything. When it gets to the point of where it does do something, it feels like it sort of "clicks" (not the noise) or sticks. Also, as we were bleeding the clutch, we had gotten all of the air and old fluid out of the system. I tried pushing the clutch. It was the same feeling as before. So, just for shits and giggles, we bled a little more. Magically, a bunch of air had gotten into the hoses.

2) Bad slave cylinder - When my dad (who was helping me at the time) was under the car, he decided to push the piston on the slave in. It stuck there. Whenever he did that, and I pushed on the pedal, it dropped to the floor. I had to lift it up with my hand. Only at that point did the slave go back to its normal position.

3) Pedal assembly? - Once again, the "click" or "sticky" feeling. The pedal even felt like that when the bleeder screw had been opened and I went to push down on the pedal.

Anybody have an opinion on it at this point?

 

[brandons 95]

the cheapest thing would be to try and change the clutch pedal return spring i had the same problem on my 95 tsi but it already had a new clutch master and slave cylender so i changed the spring and that fixed it