Alright, anyhow, bought the car this morning. 1992 Z28 5.0 TPI/5-SPEED with 45k miles. By afternoon I was learning how to drive stick-shift for the first time in my life.

Now, I must say that in the morning I had absolutely no clue how to drive the car. My brother caught on quick, and I let him drive me around in the car (to work, etc) since he was better than me at the time. He too did the occasional mistake, stall, etc.... but whatever.

During the evening I gave it a couple more tries, and I can honestly say I mastered driving 5-speed, believe it or not.

Now, here's the BIG PROBLEM!!! After my brother borrowed the car all morning, he picked me up from work, and I noticed when sitting idle, the car's RPM would idle up and down in a range of about 5-8. It just goes... vaaarooooom... vaaroooom, instead of vroom vroom. The RPM needle is a bit ecstatic. Anyhow, I immediately got a little concerned because somebody was telling me about injector problems with 92 camaros, but this car has 50k miles so I was doubting that theory. But I just thought it would go away, or I would confront my mechanic on monday.

BUT here's the big problem. We're driving home tonight, and it just feels like the gears are not connecting properly at all!!! Earlier in the day the reverse gear would not sync up. IT would make a loud grinding/klunk noise. Now when you let the clutch go, every gear does not sync-up or connect properly.

I am not sure what the problem is. It is possible I might need a new clutch, would this be a sign of this theory? Or do I have other problems? Could my transmission be shot? Is it possible I have ground down all my gears? I doubt this, because it seems like every gear is ground down, and this would be impossible since the car was fine in the morning.

I would also like to mention that in the morning when I was learning I burnt the clutch a couple of times. While we were driving later we smelt the clutch burning (kinda smelt like rubber, but not like tires...) and when we got back home, we had the problems mentioned above....

 

The reverse gear in the T5 is not syncronized. Put the trans in 5th then pull it into reverse. Works every time.

Just a reminder if ya didn't know but the T5 uses Dex III automatics transmission fluid.

 

Let me summarize my problem right now, it's not just the reverse gear...



When I ease up the clutch, press the gas to go forward, the car BARELY moves. I mean, the engine is running strong and everything, it's just, the car just rolls forward, like something is not hooking up or something. It's not driving like it was this morning!!!

Even when I let go of the clutch completely, and press the gas, it moves so SLOW!

Does this mean my clutch is dead?

 

Sounds like it my friend, all that training can take a toll on the clutch.
To much slipping buy pulling the clutch out to slow will kill a clutch with lots of miles on it.


Ron

 

Yeah pretty much. Ronterry said it best.

 

Yup, sounds to me like you need a new clutch. Welcome to the fun world of manual transmissions...

 

Somebody must have severly abused that clutch for it to go out at 50,000 miles, I have 150,000 pretty hard miles on my original clutch and it still works good.

 

Yeah...once you learn how to drive stick you can get the clutch to last A LONG Time....my friend just replaced his clutch in his 89 S10....146,xxx miles.....I learned to to drive stick on on a V8 and ppl said that was a bad i dea but i dunno....maybe b/c i learned on a 7.3L Disel(spelling)....lol....don't even need to add fuel...just slowly let the clutch out i love it....I be riding dirtbikes helped ALOT b/c they have around 8 driven plates in them and it is a wet clutch so they are ment to be slipped...ne way....because of the dumps and the dirtbikes i learned how to drive stick(gas V8) in about 1/2 hour and became pretty good at it and would never trade it for an auto...that is y i just spent 12 hours on my back making my auto a stick...lol..

 

well, look foward to your first clutch job. its not that bad with a T5. if yo uhave no clue then let us know we can help. i did my clutch 3 times in 2 years on my t56. that wasnt easy on your back. the t5 clutch isnt that expensive. I wouldnt go and spend a lot on a performance clutch if your still in the learning stages of driing a stick.look around a good price and dont buy a used one even if its cheap.make sure to get the flywheel resurfaced too. NAPA will do it in one day. they did mine for 30 bucks.

 

It's ironic that you've only just learned to drive a "stick", my Camaro is the first auto I've driven, after 20 years of manual. In the UK most cars at 75k+ mles are about ready for a new clutch, but they're not V8's. You might try seeing how much adjustment you've got left, but I would imagine a new plate and bearing is in order.

P.S. Just in case you may have oil on the clutch plate, (a last resort before driving to the clutch shop), find a hill, find reverse, find 3,000 RPM, find clutch, drop clutch. Smell smoke (lots!), see if you any better drive.

 

Hydraulic clutches in F bodies, no adjusting.

 

Morley,

Me dumb@ss, me not seen a manual Camaro in the Uk yet, me guessing.

I should just shut up

 

Naaa, if you don't make mistakes you can't learn.

 

LOL!!! I did the EXACT same thing when i got my Formula!! I had it and on my third day after trying to impress my friends by flying around, i felt as though something was wrong. Car wasnt moving as fast as the RPM's went up. Got it into the driveway, put her in reverse and it wouldnt move. Clutch.
My next clutch lasted 45k