Clutch not disengaging

[camaroman1181]

Ok, so I just swapped the locked engine in my 95 3.4L. Car has been sitting for approximately 10 months. While I was going through the trouble, I also swapped out the clutch cause the old one was slipping. Now, I get the engine running, but the clutch isn't releasing. Here's where I stand:

* New clutch kit installed, including throwout bearing (did not install new slave or master cylinder)
* I did not touch the hydraulic system - it worked fine when the engine locked up
* Clutch pedal feels very very soft... If i pump it about 10-15 times, it does seem like it builds some pressure, but not a whole lot
* Hydraulic reservoir is full
* Slave cylinder is moving in and out with the clutch pedal

Any thoughts? I'm thinking either:

* the throwout bearing fell off the fork when i was installing everything ( it happened twice but I thought it was ok when everything was bolted together)
* slave cylinder is bad / hydraulic lines have air in them

If I have to go through the hassle of bleeding this dang thing, you better believe that I'll be drilling out that fluid restrictor while I'm at it...

Any assistance would be appreciated..

Phill

[loser]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

did you bleed the ever living hell out of the system?

when i replaced my master cylinder i spent no lie,45 minutes getting my pedal back to normal.

bleeding it is no big deal, 2 people, and a set of ramps. pump the clutch alot,hold down, crack open bleeder, close bleeder. release clutch from floor and pump away again, repeat.

edit: drill mod is an easy and effective mod, if your taking the master cylinder out, yes, do it.

[camaroman1181]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

did you bleed the ever living hell out of the system?

when i replaced my master cylinder i spent no lie,45 minutes getting my pedal back to normal.

bleeding it is no big deal, 2 people, and a set of ramps. pump the clutch alot,hold down, crack open bleeder, close bleeder. release clutch from floor and pump away again, repeat.

edit: drill mod is an easy and effective mod, if your taking the master cylinder out, yes, do it.

Well, I didn't bleed the system cause I didn't take any part of the system apart during the engine swap. I figured if I didn't touch it, it wouldn't need to be bled. However, the spongy pedal is telling me otherwise. And to be honest with you, I think I'd rather bleed the system than drop the trans again. (damned new pilot bearing was almost a press fit with the trans input shaft... took forever to get the two lined up)

What year is your car? I heard that the 97 and older is a different setup..

[loser]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

mines a 1998 and im not sure if the 97 and back are the same set up to be honest. i would think so, but again,not sure.

you can buy a mity-vac and try that.

i have to bleed my clutch alot, before and after i go to the strip, and after a night of playing around on the streets. my fluid is BLACK in no time. ( probally becuase i cant get it real far away from the pacesetters )

[Skinny]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

* the throwout bearing fell off the fork when i was installing everything ( it happened twice but I thought it was ok when everything was bolted together)
* slave cylinder is bad / hydraulic lines have air in them

If I have to go through the hassle of bleeding this dang thing, you better believe that I'll be drilling out that fluid restrictor while I'm at it...

Any assistance would be appreciated..

Phill

If the throwout bearing is not on the fork, then there will be alot of movement in the fork when the pedal is released. When properly installed, the throwout bearing will always touch the pressure plate and there should be no free movement of the fork.

Check for any leaks from the slave cylinder. If it's moving with the clutch pedal, then have someone pump the pedal several times while you watch the cylinder. If there is a leak there, then you will most likely see some fluid coming out somewhere. If you see no leaks, then the best way to diagnose the problem is by bleeding it with a vacuum pump. If you continually get bubbles coming up when under vacuum, then you most likely have a master cylinder problem.

[camaroman1181]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

If the throwout bearing is not on the fork, then there will be alot of movement in the fork when the pedal is released. When properly installed, the throwout bearing will always touch the pressure plate and there should be no free movement of the fork.

Check for any leaks from the slave cylinder. If it's moving with the clutch pedal, then have someone pump the pedal several times while you watch the cylinder. If there is a leak there, then you will most likely see some fluid coming out somewhere. If you see no leaks, then the best way to diagnose the problem is by bleeding it with a vacuum pump. If you continually get bubbles coming up when under vacuum, then you most likely have a master cylinder problem.

thank you for the assistance. I picked up a vaccum pump today after work, but didn't get a chance to work on anything. I'll check the fork tomorrow before I do anything, to see if it has play. I did not notice any leaks, on the lines, slave or master cylinders, while i was under the car the other day. The clutch pedal is going to the floor pretty soft, even if i pump the pedal some. I'm going to try the bleed procedure you posted in another thread and see if i can get this thing running. Can i just put the hose from teh vaccum pump into the fluid reservoir? Will I be sucking fluid into the pump? Or will I need some sort of adaptor to fit over the reservoir in place of the cap?

[Skinny]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

You just need to put the hose down into the reservior. Hopefully your vacuum pump has an overflow cup that you can put inline. Basically you'll have one hose going from the pump to the overflow cup and another hose coming off of the cup. The hose coming off of the cup needs to have some sort of cone shaped "nozzle" on the end of it. You'll push the cone down into the hole in the bottom of the reservior and hold it there while you pump the vacuum pump.

Once you pull a vacuum up to about 18 in.hg then hold it there for a minute. You should see some bubbles coming up the hose. After about a minute, pull the hose completely out of the reservior and all the fluid that is in the hose will suck into the overflow cup. For the first several times, you may not hold 18 in.hg vacuum for very long, so keep pumping it but don't exceed 20in.hg. After repeating several times, you should start to hold vacuum as you see fewer bubbles come up through the hose.

The idea here is to suck all the fluid and air out of the system and put the whole system under a vacuum. When you remove the vacuum pump, the fluid in the reservior (make sure it's full!) will be sucked down into the hydraulic lines to fill the empty space. By continuing to repeat this procedure, you will eventually remove all the air from the system and replace it with fluid.

[mestupryan]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

yeah just get a mityvac and call it a day

[camaroman1181]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

well, i tried the vaccum pump to bleed the system...

didn't have a cone adaptor for the end, but i found that if I placed the end of the hose properly, directly over the hole in the bottom of the reservoir, I could get it to hold vaccum. At first, i would see a few small bubbles coming up the tube and out of the reservoir. I would let the pressure hold for a minute or so at 18-20 in of Hg, then hit the pressure release button and pump up the pressure again. I did this probably 5-10 times, then pulled the hose out of the reservoir and topped it with fluid. went into the car and the pedal was not to the floor. in fact, it had decent pressure (or at least, better than before).

I repeated this process 3 or 4 times. I was only seeing a very small, random bubble by that time and it seemed like the process was working.

I also crawled under the car and checked for play in the shift fork on the end of the slave cylinder... Only felt very slight play, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary

Fired up the engine (its running rough by the way... won't idle all of a sudden, but I can keep it running if i give it a bit of gas... i'm adding dry gas and pullin the plugs to check that issue this weekend.. strangly enough this started happening when I tried starting the car in gear to one time, to see if the clutch was releasing. engine revs also change when i push the clutch in and let it out, even though i'm in neutral...).

with the engine running, it still will not shift into gear. sat there, pumped the clutch pedal about 50 times... still won't go into gear.

I have to admit, i'm a little annoyed at this thing.. I really don't want to have to pull the trans again, but its beginning to look like thats my option at this point.

Any other suggestions?

[Skinny]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

Don't use the pressure release button. Doing that will release all the air that is in the lines of the vacuum pump back into the master cylinder. You have to physically pull the line out of the reservior while it's still under vacuum. That way only the fluid that's in the reservior will be sucked back down into the master cylinder.

[loser]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

Don't use the pressure release button. Doing that will release all the air that is in the lines of the vacuum pump back into the master cylinder. You have to physically pull the line out of the reservior while it's still under vacuum. That way only the fluid that's in the reservior will be sucked back down into the master cylinder.

yep. just becarful, you can collopse the master cylinder is you get to vacuum happy i belive.

it doesnt really sound like a master cylinder problem now, im starting to lean toward slave with your last post.

[camaroman1181]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

So i figured I'd let everyone know what went down with my car...

First things first.. it's fixed and back on the road... finally!

Now, for the cause...

After bleeding the system a minimum of 20 times, still couldnt get the clutch to release. Had my dad helping me trouble shoot, slave cylinder was working, throwout bearing was pressing in on the pressure plate... but clutch lever released.

After some thought, i remembered that the trans was super tight bolting back up to the bellhousing.. We had to use the 4 bolts to draw the trans back into position. That should have been a clue, but we struggled with this a lot so as it was and that was the best that it seemed like it would go.

so we were thinking... if the clutch and master cylinder are working, and the throwout bearing is releasing the pressure plate.. what else could be causing the clutch to not release? Then we thought of it...

Well, remember that new clutch kit? Well that new clutch kit came with a new pilot bearing.

After taking it all apart, we found that the pilot bearing I.D. was too small, essentially being a pressfit onto the trans input shaft. And since the pilot bearing is basically a press fit into the crank, we were more or less coupling the crank to the input shaft, via the pilot bearing. The clutch had nothing to do with it, it was merely along for the ride.

So, we took the pilot bearing out, swapped it back at the parts store, cleaned up the input shaft on the trans with some emery paper (the bearing left slight scratches in it) put it all back together, and everything works perfectly.

So after all that, it turned out to be a defective pilot bearing. I asked a ton of people about this problem and not one of them even thought of this issue. And it took us 3 weeks of working on it to figure it out.

But my car is back on the road for the first time in 10 months... new engine, new clutch, new lots of other stuff... and thats all that matters..

[Skinny]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

Glad you figured it out. :)

For future reference, you should never have to use the bolts to draw a transmission into the bellhousing. You may have some trouble bolting the bellhousing to the block (if the alignment pins are rusted) but the trans should always slide all the way into the bellhousing with ease.

Again, glad everythig is working out now. Lesson learned for everyone :)

[cam98aro]

Re: Clutch not disengaging

Glad you figured it out. :)

For future reference, you should never have to use the bolts to draw a transmission into the bellhousing. You may have some trouble bolting the bellhousing to the block (if the alignment pins are rusted) but the trans should always slide all the way into the bellhousing with ease.

Again, glad everythig is working out now. Lesson learned for everyone :)

hey, do you think this might be what my problem is also?

my transmission went in, but it wasnt the easiest thing