ok, today my t5 stopped going into gear. With the car OFF, it smoothly goes into each gear. I can start the car in 1st, but it starts sluggish, and makes a horrible rattly sound.

I can get the car moving, but when I try to shift gears, it makes a Shreaking, grinding sound. It's horrible. I had to limp the car home, so I had no option but to find a sweet spot and force it into gear. For some reason 2nd., 3rd, and 4th are difficult, but it goes into 5th easy.

I was told by somebody that listened to it that it was the throwout bearing, but I'd like to get some more opinions before I start tearing the thing apart. I would hate to do a clutch job and replace the bearing of there is more to it than that.

ideas?

 

Sounds just like mine when the throw out bearing failed. Depending on how old your clutch disc is, you may consider replacing that too.

 

Yup, something is wrong with the clutch; not the trans, YET. Won't take long to tear up the trans though.

Could be th ethrowout, could be something about the diaphragm itself that's broke; doesn't too much matter just exactly what, it's clutch job time. Just renew it. If you REALLY care what it is that broke, examine the debris AFTER you replace it.

 

well the only place I'm driving the car is down to the garage, less than a half mile away. Hopefully I havn't damaged it


I already have a clutch kit from summit, I'm hoping they will use my parts, I hear some aftermarket kits have crapola plastic throwouts in them

I'm also going to talk to the garage about inspecting and possibly replacing the rear main seal and/or cam cover plate gasket while they are in there. I have a leak, and It may actually be the distributor o ring, but at least they can tell while they are in there.

I know it's a job I can probably do myself, but I'm so busy I don't think I have a free weekend for a couple of months, and I would rather get the car back on the road before then.

I might change my mind if the garage insists on using their parts and charging me way too much for them.

 

Got a price quoted if $375 if the shop uses my parts and the flywheel doesn't need turning. Seemed a little high for labor. I'm going to shop around or attempt it myself

 

that's probably reasonable. i paid close to $900 to get mine replaced, granted it used their parts so it would be covered under warranty, but when i bought the parts myself parts were only about $400 (clutch disk, pressure plate, throwout bearing and pilot bushing)... so it was around $500 in labor and turning the fly wheel (which i would recommend when putting a new clutch in).... just my 2 cents. i think the shop said it took 6 hours in labor. doing it yourself is an option but man is the top bolt a PITA.

 

I went to a transmission shop this afternoon (first place was my regular garage)

they quoted me $250, and an extra $30 if the flywheel needed turning. two places today said that unless my clutch went bad (it isn't, still good for the time being) that the flywheel is probably fine

the transmission shop also said they would inspect the rear cam seal to see if it needs replacing, and they could do it

For $250 it's hardly worth doing it myself, but I'm still not ruling that out

 

Don't rule out the hydraulics. If there is air in the system it won't disengage completely causing problem similar to this. Not saying it is your problem but it is something that can be a problem.

 

thanks, you're the second person that told me that. That's one reason I'm leaning on taking to to the shop, to have them diagnose it before I tear into it

 

I think you're making the right choice by taking it to the shop. I replaced the clutch and throw out bearing in my '91 RS when I swapped the engine, and it was a royal pain getting the transmission to line up exactly right with both the engine and transmission out of the car, so I can only imagine what it would be like laying under the car trying to get it back in right, LOL.

 

it's getting fixed now. It was the throwout, so I'm having that and the clutch changes, resurfacing the flywheel, and while they are back there, the main rear seal is getting changed to stop a leak

should be about $350 for all of that, but I supplied the parts

 

awsome. new clutches are always a good thing. i just always have the shop buy the parts so they are covered under warranty..... been burned by that before.

 

gaah... not fixed

turns out parts of the noise I heard was one of the springs on the clutch plate was broken, and it was causing all kinds of hell inside when in gear

but... I have no clutch pedal pressure. it's worse now than before I went to the shop. I don't "think" they did anything to harm it, but now to get it into gear I have to pump pump pump until I buildup enough pressure to get it into gear. All I know is when I took it in, I had a firm clutch, and now I don't.

The shop owner called me and told me that the master cylinder was bad, and they quoted me $95 for the part and $80 for labor. I know that part is half that price new, and I've heard it's an easy job. I drove the car home as is, and I'll get the part myself and decide if I'm going to do it myself or pay him or somebody else the labor to put it in

Off to go find threads on changing a clutch master cylinder.....

 

bought a slave and a master (dorman) for $70 for both. As long as I am bleeding the system, I might as have new parts on both ends

 

Probably nothing wrong with your clutch master/slave. They probably just didn't bleed it properly. I had a similar problem with my 85 after a tranny replacement. When you bleed the slave you sometimes have to manually push the slave piston back in further than it usually goes to get all the air out.

 

I had that thought. Might try bleeding it myself before I replace any parts

 

have a friend help you and all you have to do is have him pump the pedal and hold it. Then you open the bleeder. Then while it is open grab the clutch fork at the slave push as hard as you can towards the front of the car. When it bottoms out keep holding it and quickly close the bleeder. Only do this a max of 2 times between topping off the fluid.

 

went ahead and paid him to replace both the master and the slave. the car works great, but the clutch pedal is very soft. I'd like it to have more resistance. Can I assume if it works fine he bled it properly?

If I pump the pedal and it gets firmer, is that a sign that I should bleed it again?

 

it may have a little air that just needs to work it's way out. additionally a soft pedal doesn't always mean it's not working. when i had the clutch in my IROC replaced i went from a really firm pedal to no resistance. and i mean to the point i thought there was no fluid in the system. it was so effortless i could push the clutch in with two fingers. took a while to get used to it, but i loved it afterward, especially in stop and go traffic.

 

yeah, that's why I asked. it seems to be fine, but it will take some getting used to.

I'll go ahead and pump it and see if anything changes. if it doesn't, i'm not going to mess with trying to bleed them again

 

I just went through a similar process of bleeding hydraulics for my cobbled together T56 Hydraulic setup last night.

It still feels WAY soft, so we devised a couple of tests. Im not sure how effective these are, but I cant think of any obvious reasons they are NOT indicative of properly functioning hydraulic setups.

This will only work if you have a posi, though. We put the car in neutral, (engine off) and I turned the rear wheels. Then we put it in gear, clutch engaged (pedal not depressed) and it was locked in place hard against the compression of the engine. Then we pushed the clutch in. And we just compared the amount of force it took to rotate the wheels with it in neutral vs in gear with the clutch depressed. If you dont have a posi you can skip to step 2, or try to turn the driveshaft directly.

After that seemed to work okay. It felt like neutral in first gear with the clutch in. So we moved onto the second test. This is with the wheels in the air too. No resistance on them at all.

We turned on the engine, put it in gear, and put the clutch to the floor, then we checked to see if the rear wheels were turning. We actually had a board ready to stop the wheel via friction in case it was just turning from inertia. But with the clutch depressed and engine running, in first gear, we revved it, just let it idle and regardless the wheels did nothing. completely stationary. Then we slowly let out on the clutch pedal and the wheels would start turning, and that tells you exactly where the beginning of the engagement point of the clutch is.

So the idea is that as long as you get full disengagement, the hydraulics are functioning well enough to drive.

I haven't actually driven the car around yet, but I feel good knowing that it seemed to be behaving okay so far.

 

Thanks for that post! Good tips there.

Here's the latest...
The pedal is firm when the car is in the garage, but once you get moving it turns soft again. A couple times it took a little effort to get it into first, but otherwise it was ok today. I guess i'll try to bleed it, it's not a difficult job

 

the problem seemed to have solved itself. After a couple of days the pedal firmed up, and it feels great now.