erratic clutch operation

[schmidtgr2]

I hope someone can help me with a clutch problem on my '05 Legacy GT. Clutch has always been close to the floor when it disengages. I changed the slave cylinder and bled it, approx. 1 year ago. seemed to help a bit, but not much difference. Later, I discovered I could adjust the linkage and did this to lengthen it a bit. Again, seemed to help a bit temporarily, but not a clean fix. In recent months, car often cannot be put in gear (with engine running) after sitting for a while, so I just replaced/bled the clutch master/slave cyls. Again, clutch seemed maybe, a bit better but not real noticeable. At least I could get the car in gear....... then after about a day, I went to check it again, and I could not shift into 1st after starting it, just like before. With engine off, I can shift....Clearly appears that clutch is not disengaging consistently. Generally, clutch appears to begin to grab, approx. 1/2" off the floor.

 

I am running out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The clutch was replaced at 70,000 (pervious owner). It now has about 115K. It has no slipping problem under load, in high gear.

 

Thanks!

[Max Capacity]

PM "underdog" he works on these cars a lot.

 

Do you know which clutch is in the car ?

 

Sounds like its worn down or maybe the pressure plate has a problem. Guessing here...

[heiche]

what max said ^

 

Also, it might be possible to adjust the rod too long and get that behavior. Maybe try making it shorter so there's a little play, and see if that helps? If not, you can always adjust it back to where it was.

[Impulse]

I had to deal with this problem for the past 1.5 years on my car!

 

First, check to make sure your clutch linkage rod is not too far adjusted as per heiche's comment. You want to make sure that you can push in on the clutch fork (Towards the slave cylinder) and the slave cylinder will move fluid back into the clutch master cylinder. If it doesn't, you've probably adjusted the piston PAST the last fluid intake point and it can no longer "add more fluid" to the throw: http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/mastercylinderreplace/static-schematic.gif . Adjust it to the point where the slave cylinder will compress.

 

If that doesn't work, your pressure plate is most likely broken as Max Capacity had mentioned. I would advise taking off the slave cylinder and that rubber boot around the clutch fork so you can shine a light into the pressure plate and inspect it. You SHOULD see that all the fingers are intact and even with each other. If you loose a finger, the rest of the pressure plate has to work harder to disengage the diaphragm, requiring more and more throw until it exceeds the maximum pedal travel. It turns out that I had lost a finger and 2 others were so brittle they broke off when I was removing my ACT pressure plate. It still held well and clamped hard, it just wouldn't disengage for me either.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/act-sb5-hdss-pressure-plate-failure-239311.html

 

Good luck!