Clutch Troubles

I've been wrenching now for over 30 years, and I have to say I've never encountered this before. Maybe someone here can clue me in on whats happening. Have a 1989 CRX Si with manual tranny. Clutch started making noise and shifting became difficult then impossible. We tore down the car and removed the bell housing to find a tension spring from the clutch disc had broken out and was jamming the works up. No problem. We installed a new clutch plate, new pressure plate, new throwout bearing, and new fork spring. Put it all back together and tested. Car with motor off - shifts beautifully with clutch in, tranny goes into each gear smoothly. With clutch out can still move throught gears but with resistance. This is all normal. Car with motor running - cannot move shifter into any gear with or without clutch depressed. If we shut motor off and put car into any gear, and push clutch pedal to floor and try to turn the motor over, the car lurches like its in gear. What the heck is going on here??? We've triple checked everything including the clutch cable adjustment, evertything is perfect. Am I missing something like maybe some sort of electric shift lock thats actuated by the clutch pedal???? This is insane, but I need to get this car on the road. Anyone?

I had some similar problems with the exception of the car lurching. Mine turned out to be a "stretched" clutch cable and bad tranny synchros. I could shift into any gear while the car was not running. Start the car and I couldn't shift into anything without grinding. Finally, my CV axel broke while driving. There was no indication of a bad axel either. No torn boots, vibrations, noises or grease..

Thanks CR. We cannot even get it into gear at all with the motor running. We've pulled and yanked on that shifter and thought we were going to bust the darn thing off. This is a stubborn problem.....

I know what you mean. I dealt with this for about 5 months before my CV axel finally broke. When it did brea, I ended up replacing the tranny due to being able to find them failry cheap versus rebuilding my old one. let us know how yours turns out. Maybe it will help someone else out there.

Dude I Had The Same Problem. Replaced The Cluch Face, Plate, And Bearing. Works Fine. Turns Out The Little Springs On The Face Plate Fell Out And Was Jamming The Pressure Plate. Couldn't Shift.

I Did Have Trouble With The T.o.b. Spring Though, I Almost Put It On Backwards. Hope Its Not To Serious,

Problem Solved!!! Well, I spent this morning and the early part of this afternoon tearing down my CRX again to investiage this clutch problem. I found that the clutch disc was too wide by about 1/4 inch. The parts dealer sold me the disc for the later 1989-1990 model which is a slightly larger size. What was happening as a result was the clutch disc outter edge was mashed againts the pressure plate housing thus making it so that even if the clutch was disengaged, the clutch disc was still being spun by the pressure plate housing it was jambed against. Moral of the story I guess is to double check all new parts against the old one before installation.

Ones and Zeros (you gotta be a programmer), thats what happened to start all of this mess. One of the springs in the clutch disk fell out and was jambing the clutch. Ggrrrr..... Darn cheap repop parts!

L8R!

Glad you got the problem fixed! I learned that it's important to do a side by side comparison with replacement parts. Thanks!