Clutch Slipping Big Time

jsinton · 09-15-2008, 07:50 PM

Hi all. I just bought a 1999 Elantra yesterday. I test drove it, it had great power, and clutch seemed fine. I drove it home 90 miles with no problems. Today I drove it to get insurance and registration... again no problems. I was a happy camper. I''m normally a really slow driver, and I pussy foot the clutch PLENTY. I''m used to NEVER needing to replace a clutch disk.

Then it was like somebody flipped the "clutch slip ON" switch. There was no gradual slippage, no hint of a bad clutch. It just started slipping like crazy in all gears. I was barely able to limp home, thank God there was no hills or I wouldn''t have made it.

I inspected what I could see. The fluid resivouir is full with CLEAN fluid like somebody had bled it recently. I don''t see any leaks. There doesn''t appear to be an adjustment of any kind. The master cylinder appears a little too clean, like it got replaced. The pedal seems a little too high to me, that''s why I was looking for an adjustment.

Normally in my old Volvo I would assume the clutch is bad and replace it, but by reading this forum it looks like that may not be my problem.

Any help much appreciated... thanks in advance.

dmiller66 · 09-17-2008, 10:53 PM

You might want to check for an oil leak. If the rear main seal leaks onto the clutch, that can cause it to slip.

jsinton · 09-19-2008, 05:01 AM

Yeah, I thought of that, but there's no leaks from the main seal, also no leaks from the clutch slave or master either. I'm presently dropping the trans, I report when I know something.

jsinton · 09-24-2008, 06:52 PM

Well, I got the transmission out, and much to my suprise, the clutch was fine, no problem.
A fine waste time. At least I got a replacement clutch cheap, $90 w/shipping on eBay for the whole clutch set. I put in the new clutch, and reassembled everything. When I tried to connect the slave plunger to the controller arm, the slave was siezed. So the slave was holding the arm, making the clutch slip. I was able to bleed the system, and clear whatever was holding it. Now I have a new clutch, and it works good. Too bad I had to drop the trans to figure it out.

POST REPLY TO THIS THREAD