Hi All,

I'm in desperate need of my car to keep me working and I got everything all fixed up and working nicely and then the transmition did something on the way home. :crying:

I was moving along at about 75 km/h (47 mph), I slowed down to about 60 and than I began to gently gear down as usual. As soon as I engaged 3rd gear, the clutch popped and I wasn't able to get it back into gear. I pushed it off the road and had a general look over and saw nothing visibly wrong, so I tried to get it back into gear. After a few tries, I figured out how to get it to change gears with great difficulty both with the shift position and with the clutch position. The contact point for shifting is earlier,making the starter actually move the car forward when it cranks.

It feels as if a spring has come undone. Anybody have any ideas. Please take pity on me, I'm dirt broke and Sunday is my 30th birthday. I was supposed to party this weekend. So, please help me to have her fixed by sundown Saturday, so I can get wasted one last time as a youth. :smokin:

Jai

Jai

Hopefully it's your clutch cable so you don't have to tear it down too bad. Good luck with this friend.

Anyway, happy birthday..... kid. :smile:

does it shift easilly when the engine is turned off?

had a similar sounding problem with a Metro a couple years ago; it became very difficult to shift gears, but it was not the clutch.
It was like I could only get it into a couple gears, like first and third or something, and even then only with difficulty.
I pulled the whole tranny, thinking it was bad and would need replacement, turns out a bolt in the linkage to the stickshift had come out and I could have fixed it with the tranny still in the car by opening an inspection plate and replacing the bolt.
So try looking at the linkage, either from under the car or also by pulling up carpet and floor plates and looking at where the stickshift goes into the tranny, remove any plates you can.
good luck

I haven't pulled anything apart yet. In answer to corvette's question, yes, with the engine off, I can still move it through the gears. When the engine is on, it acts as if the clutch is already half way depressed. The gears catch really fast, and to put it into first gear causes a stall unless I am giving it gas at the same time I engage the gear. I know so little about transmissions, but I have fixed everything else on this car, so I can figure it out I hope.

Does anybody think that there may be some relation to the fact that I just came back from a road trip through the mountains, (900 km each way). I have to admit that since I had finished a bunch of repairs on the suspension and drive axle, I was excited that my car had new life, as well as a tach, so I had some fun. Can you say 160km an hour? (100 mph). I guess that there is a consequence for every action.

Jai

step on the clutch and see if the cable is moving under the hood on the tranny and check for free play. if the cable is bad that would account for your problem, if its moving then its probably part of the clutch itself like maybe the throwout bearing went bad or maybe the pressure plate fingers broke. if it was the shiter bolts it would be as hard to shift with the engine off as when it was running

Engaging the clutch with the engine off, I do see the cable moving, but it is moving with a lot of resistance. It is as if something were in the way, requiring much more effort to push the clutch. I can push it all the way to the floor, but it feels very spongy, and I worry that I will do damage, due to the amount of resistance it is meeting.

Does this help to further reduce the number of possible problems?

Jai

unhook the cable from the transmission and move it in and out and see if it feels free, if it does you will have to pull the tranny off and see whats bad, if cable is real stiff then its probably coming apart inside the sheath somewhere and will need to be replaced

I found nothing wrong with the clutch cable, so I went for the gusto and pulled the trani. That was more than I bargained for, and definitely not a good job to do in my back yard. Nevertheless, I believe I have found the problem. A spring (what is it's purpose anybody?) has fallen out of place and would not allow the pressure plate to fully disengage. You can see it in the photos.

Aside from the question of what is that spring for, can I get it back where it should be? Should it be replaced? Is the pressure plate too worn out and a good candidate for replacement?

Oh yeah, the water pump leaked a lot of glycol while I was messing around, trying to free the horizontal metal coolant delivery from the transmission. Do you think I have wrecked a seal on the water pump?

Thanks for all of the help so far! I look forward to getting it back together tomorrow.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3406/car0011db2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/779/car0021di3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

i would take it all apart and see how the clutch looks, the spring might be a spring off the clutch disk itself. also spin the throwout bearing and see if it sounds dry. its about $100 for a new clutch kit with all the pieces and alignment tool.

Actually, it cost me 190 dollars for the kit. Another example of how much it costs to drive in Canada. I replaced the clutch and pressure plate with no trouble, but it took me 2 hours to clean the transmission to a point I could be reasonably satisfied with. I managed to get the transmission back on with my son operating the jack and me swearing a lot. I felt really unsure about whether the spindle(?) seated itself inside the pilot bearing properly, but all the bolts snugged up without any kind of ugly sounds or jerky movements. I had some difficulty with the centre engine mount too. After I got the other mounts on, I realized that I forgot the gaskets that fit on either side of the mount. We'll see if I can get those in without actually taking the trani off again. Wish me luck.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1323/car003rn0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Jai

im not sure what those rubber washers do, they just kind of sit there. think they are just something the factory uses to line stuff up when they put the engine in. half the ones i replace motors on don't get them put back in.