car left me stranded... sorta

[Synthesis]

today i pulled up to a stop light - light turned green.... i pushed the clutch pedal in (made a slight clicking noise) then it wouldn't go into gear. tried a few times, nothing

i ended up putting on my flashers and letting everybody go around me.... let the car roll down the slight hill it was on and pulled off the road.

checked the master cyl, everything was fine. no leaks, pedal pressure was fine. i figured it had to be the slave not pushing in the release fork. ended up calling AAA. about 5 min later, i somehow fixed it.

i stuck my arm down in the engine bay and pulled the slave/release fork boot out of the trans case (while burning my arm on coolant hoses and the trans). i felt around in there, but everything seemed ok. i dont' know why, but i got back in the car, and tried again.... shifted fine. i closed it all up and drove to my friend's house, which was nearby. everything functions perfectly again.....

WHAT HAPPENED?

while i was driving back to my friends place, it sounded like somehting fell from the engine bay onto the road (sounded like something metallic).

i'm going to put it up tomorrow (or this weekend) and take a look at it.....

anybody experience anything like this before? both cyls are brand new, and everything has been functioning perfectly for the last ~400 miles (just replaced the clutch)

i have a couple ideas....
1) shift cables - don't know how they would have moved around...
2) air bubble - don't think it's that, i bled it thoroughly.

any ideas are welcome...
(why do i get all these weird problems??)

 

[Synthesis]

oh, that initial clicking noise i experienced came from the master cyl/clutch pedal

 

[Synthesis]

alright, so i looked at the shift cables, everything was OK, looked at the slave, everything OK..... the master has clearance between the pushrod and the actual cylinder (~5-10mm). Put everything back together and drove it for about 2 hours last night - no problems

Today I took it out again and had no problems for about 2 hours. Then the same crap happened again.... the car wouldn't go into gear. This time i just shut off the car and started it again and then it started to work again. I encountered the problem again a couple lights up the road, shut it off, worked again.

so i was driving it for about 20 min after that with no problems, then i got on the gas in first after leaving a light... when i shifted into second, it shifted fine, but when i let off the clutch it made a grinding noise.... not the tranny grinding... it felt like the clutch wasn't fully engaged .... i stopped and checked everything the best i could, nothing visually wrong.... started driving home, and every gear i shifted had that same grinding ..... then fifth woudln't engage.... i got it to engage on a second try, but it did that grinding thing again..... i left it in fifth and put it on cruise with my flashers on.

after a while, i tried downshifting and checking it out. everything is working perfectly again.

what the hell is going on with my car????

note that everytime i took it out and it started being a pain, i had been driving it for a couple hours. could this be a problem with the master cyl?

sucks

any help/advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Synthesis]

forgot to mention.... that click in the pedal also occurred a couple of times when i would push the clutch in when the grinding started.

also wondering if the reason that it happens after so long is that it's heat related??

makes me want to send my car to SoS or something and have them rip the whole car apart, fix the problem, and replace any wear parts so the car is like brand new. too bad i don't have the money for that.

 

[FrEsHaZzBuRu]

How long ago since your last clutch replacement? Is there a wobble feel at all when you disengage the clutch when the problem is occurring? When you got on the gas did you take it up to a higher rpm before shifting? If it is a clutch problem, when you take it up to the higher rpm, it should have a little more difficulty to shift into gear, if you can at all. Hope you figure out your problem.


Josh

 

[EIFFEL]

sounds like a bad clutch slave cylinder.

 

[Synthesis]

How long ago since your last clutch replacement? Is there a wobble feel at all when you disengage the clutch when the problem is occurring? When you got on the gas did you take it up to a higher rpm before shifting? If it is a clutch problem, when you take it up to the higher rpm, it should have a little more difficulty to shift into gear, if you can at all. Hope you figure out your problem.
Josh

actually, i just replaced the clutch (flywheel, clutch, pressure plate), master cyl, and slave cyl. the car feels excellent when you first start to drive it, after a couple hours these problems seem to arise.

i guess you could call it a wobble feeling when i disengaged the clutch....., but it slid into the gate for 2nd just fine. it was when i let off where i felt a grinding in the pedal - made a different grinding noise than the trans when you mis-shift. i took it to 8k when this grinding happened. (also, the pedal made that weird click again, and everytime i would push it in.

usually shifting at higher rpm is fine, even with this new clutch.... it's just after i've been driving it.

one of my co-workers (who was a honda tech and service advisor for ~20 years) told me to check that the master cyl has that little bit of clearance between the pushrod and the cylinder itself.

He mentioned that it could seem to work properly at first, and then when thermal expansion kicks in (when the trans and the clutch fluid gets hot) it may not be doing its job properly (can't remember the details of what he told me).

in any case, i checked it and am quite confident that i have that clearance.

i want to just take it in somewhere and have them look at it, but i don't wanna be charged a ton of money (esp when i saved a bunch by doing everything myself).

i think i will check the pedal adjustment (just to see where it stands). maybe bleed the system again? i might have to go to the dealer and ask for another master cyl. (yay - installing that thing was a huge c**t)

thanks for the reply

 

[Synthesis]

sounds like a bad clutch slave cylinder.

you think it's the slave? any reason why you think it's that over the master?

thanks

 

[EIFFEL]

did the tech lube the snout of the transmission with Honda high temp urea grease? the area where the throw-out bearing slides on. If not, then the thermal expansion can cause the clutch pedal to stiffen up.

 

[Synthesis]

i'm the one that installed the clutch and i took care to grease it properly....

clutch pedal feel is consistently good.... it's just the random things that happen over time... my best guess is that it's heat related (esp since it went away after i let it run light on the highway for awhile with no shifts).

i just want to believe that it's something simple, so i don't have to take the trans out again :redface: hopefully it's something little.... but it may not be :frown:

if not, i have somebody who can help with it.... just hope it doesn't come down to taking everything back apart again.

kinda discouraging....

again, thanks for the input.

 

[Thom]

I've had this happen long ago on a Toyo truck I had. The problem ended up being the clutch plate springs. One of the springs had actualy come out and the others had lost there placement. At this point the clutch disk has trouble staying aligned. Sometimes it will work, but will make noise. When it doesn't work it's because you cannot dis-engage the clutch, parts in the way. Just because it's a new clutch does not mean it can't go bad. YOU MUST REPLACE YOUR CLUTCH AGAIN!

 

[Synthesis]

did you experience any noise in your truck other than when it made the grinding from the clutch disk during shifting? was it heat related too?

yeah, i'm realizing i may have to take it all apart again... just want to make sure that, after all the effort, that's what it really is.

2nd time around would be much easier, though... no doubt.

thanks for the suggestions - keep em coming

anything easy to check before i rip the whole car apart again? :redface:

 

[woodwork]

Synth:

You answered your own question. It sounds like a heat related problem.

Sounds like even tho the pressure plate may be pulling away from the disk that maybe the splines on the (hot) mainshaft are holding the disk against the flywheel making it act as if the clutch were not disengaging. This way it would grind in any gear as if you were not pushing in on the clutch.

The test: Next time it does not go into first at a stop, while slightly pushing on the shifter with the clutch pedal in, turn off the key. If it falls into gear then it was the synchros not letting it go into gear with the flywheel spinning, but the minute the engine stopped the gears matched and did engage. We saw this a lot on high mileage early cars with a lot of clutch dust on the main shaft.

HTH

 

[Synthesis]

yeah, i think i know what i have to do...
oh well, this time i can clean everything off really well.
(and take ins off the car while i work on it)

i didn't include this in the thread originally, but when i was installing the clutch, i ran into a problem where the splines had a slight notch on each one.... at the same depth in the clutch disk. instead of sending it back to RPS, we worked it with a needle file. everything seemed to fit perfectly.... and i'm surprised that the problem exists with no other traces.... but it does explain the fact that it only occurs after heated.

either way, the experts are leaning toward the splines..... so i'm putting it back up soon.... (after i make sure that RPS will replace the part - hopefully the before pictures will be enough)

thanks for all the input everybody

 

[Nero Tenebre]

I've had this happen long ago on a Toyo truck I had. The problem ended up being the clutch plate springs. One of the springs had actualy come out and the others had lost there placement. At this point the clutch disk has trouble staying aligned. Sometimes it will work, but will make noise. When it doesn't work it's because you cannot dis-engage the clutch, parts in the way. Just because it's a new clutch does not mean it can't go bad. YOU MUST REPLACE YOUR CLUTCH AGAIN!

Sorry to say, but I just had this exact thing happen to me, and it was indeed the clutch spring that broke. What happens is it gets knocked around as the clutch spins and lodges itself into different places, that's why you can't engage sometimes and sometimes you can. It chews up the whole disc surface and you basically do have to replace the entire clutch... =( Good luck and sorry that happened to you...ouch. You might also make sure the clutch was initialized properly if it's a dual disc, that mighta done it.

 

[Nero Tenebre]

p.s. I think I remember this being a common problem with the RPS clutches if you do a search.