well really its one problem but my 88 iroc-z, 305 tbi 5-speed, has burnt up 2 clutches it only has a little over 76k on the odometer and about a year after my brother bought it brand new off the lot the clutch fried and the dealership told him it was a manufacturing defect and replaced it free of charge well about 7 years ago he gave it to me as a birhtday present, he had nowhere to store it and didn't wanna see it go to anyone else....anyways last summer i had it parked in the driveway and i went to back out and my clutch was making almost no contact i was getting no power through except enough to roll about 3 miles an hour and by the time i pulled it back into my shop the clutch was completely shot. I just wondered if anyone might have any idea what might be causing this problem i'm going to replace the clutch pretty soon and i was hoping someone could point out something that could be causing this problem. Any help is appreciated.

 

not following your timeframe, but 2 clutches in 76k miles is not bad. Probably just normal wear and tear there, and i dont know how you or your brother drive and shift.

The clutch could be shot from the pressureplate being weak and not fully engaging the disc, or from slipping the clutch too much, or an improperly prepped flywheel.

The clutch hydraulics could be bad, but you would notice that its difficult to shift as the clutch would not fully disengage when you pushed the pedal

 

it actually did have problems shifting but only into third and reverse prolly just chipped gears and what the timeline is my brother bought it brand new in 88 and within 8-10k miles it burned up the factory clutch he did not drive it hard and from riding with him in the car i can say that it wasn't the way he shitfted. The second one actually lasted about roughly 20 years and close to 65 thousand miles i just don't see why it gave out with zero warning it wasn't slipping or anything before that...I know it was past it life but i've never had a clutch just give completely out after being fine 20 minutes earlier. thanks for your response i'll check out all the hydraulic clutch components and if that checks out ok then i'll check the flywheel etc...

 

if it "just gave out", the hydraulics probably blew.

 

well i haven't had a chance to look into it yet thanks for the input though. i hope this isn't the case but if it is looks like i'm gonna be waiting a little longer than i hoped to get it back on the road.