Hi, I have a '91 Camaro RS with a 5-speed and I have a problem where my clutch doesn't engage until I completely release the pedal. I am kind of a newb with cars, but I don't think that the clutch is the problem. The previous owner had just put in a new one recently and the car only has 81,000 miles on it. I have been reading through the forum and it seems that the most common causes are that the hydraulic system or the linkage. Could someone please give me some instructions on how I could check these two things, including any special tools needed. I really would like to do this myself if at all possible to learn something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks.

 

It's the clutch.

The hydraulic system cannot cause that.... the only way it could is if it put out more motion than goes into it, which is plainly impossible since that would require a perpetual motion machine.

Doesn't matter how "new" the clutch is. If it's a POS, it's a POS; sounds like that's what you've got. Sounds like the previous owner stuck the cheapest possible thing he could find in there just so he could sell the car, and now it's your turn to do it right.

 

Ouch, I was hoping that there was something that I could do that would be a tad less expensive. Well I have read around a little and it seems that the Mcleod clutch from thunderracing.com is a good choice so I may look into getting this one. Any other suggestions?

Do clutches just go out of nowwhere? My car is still driveable, but am I in danger of just losing all gears suddenly while driving?

Thanks for the input again.

 

Well I can't give you exact details on this, but a friend of mine had it happen to his wife's '87 (I think) Z28 after he put a new 350 in. Because he wanted to run an 11" clutch with the T-5 he ended up having to get a truck bellhousing, modify the crossmember and shifter (due to the whole angle of the tranny in third gens issue we all know about ) and once he got everything set up he bled the hydraulics several times and, at first, couldn't get the clutch to disengage. He ended up making a longer clutch pushrod so that it would disengage, but then he had a problem where it wouldn't engage, he figured the new pushrod was too long, but he worked with it a little more, and one time he let the pedal all the way up and then the clutch slowly engaged....the more times he worked the clutch the better it worked. I don't believe he ever figured out conclusively why this happened, but the clutch did engage after he'd let the pedal all the way up. I realize this isn't much of a help, and it does sound like your clutch is probably bad, but do check over the hydraulics and stuff before you go tearing the tranny off to put a new clutch in. Looking stuff over is cheap, and sometimes you'll find something simple

-Paul