A friend of mine drives a 95 5spd. says he got in the car this morning, stepped on the clutch, and when he went to put it in gear, all it did was grind (any gear). he let off the clutch and pushed it again and... nothing.. no resistance what so ever.. foot went straight to the floor.

What should the first thing I look for be? Master Cylinder? throwout bearing? clutch itself?

Thanks for the input. Going to leave work early to take a look at it. so post any suggestions if you can.

-Nick

 

Bet the clutch master cylinder is dry. Most likely the cause is a leak somewhere in the hydraulic system. Adding fluid and bleeding the system will bring it back to life, but he should watch the level closely and try to find the leak.

 

If the pedal travels to the floor, it could only mean one thing. They hydrolic system is damaged in some way. Master cylinder or the slave cylinder could be shot. He could have a hole in the line/hose. He should be leaking fluid if this is the case (unless he's already out )

 

Same thing happened to me but it was my throwout bearing, fixed it in 20 min...then my tranny went after maybe 20 feet of driving Mechanic said it was unrelated, just a big coincidence!

 

How do you fix/replace a throwout bearing in 20 minutes?

 

A) I know what I was doing, or supposed to do before I did it

B) It was on my Jetta, which is very easy to work on because I practically know everything about the frikkin car

 

No, my point was I didn't they they are accessable without seperating the transmission from the engine...unless Jetta's are, which I'd have no idea about.

 

Yea, it's really easy to change it on a VW, its just a 3" plate you remove which takes maybe 5 min of prying and BAM, your there. Disconnect the clutch arm, maybe 2 min...take out the release lever and spring, maybe a minute. Then you can take out the bearing and replace it, maybe 5-10 min, replace everything, another 5-10 minutes. It's not hard on a mechanical system, not sure about hydraulic. But that has nothing to do with this post, SORRY!

 

Wow, that's nice. On 4th gens you can't get to it without seperating the tranny...I though you ment you did all that in 20 minutes, which would be nuts!

 

Luck that the Jetta (obviously) has an input shaft that can be removed while the tranny is in place - or a throwout bearing that can be removed with the input whaft is in place. Which one is it?

The Opel Kadett/Vauxhall Astra from Europe (The Pontiac Le Mans in the US) has an input shaft that you can remove while the tranny is still in the car - you can change a clutch in 30 mins. Saaa-weeeet!!

 

How would I go about testing the Master / slave cylinders ?

bled the lines, still no clutch

thanks

-Nick

 

Try this;

1) Get a friend to push on the clutch while you watch the slave cylinder - Is the throwout arm is actually being moved?

2) Try to move the throwout arm yourself by hand. Is is too difficult to move by hand, or does it move freely?

3) When you bled the lines can you confirm that pressing on the pedal made fluid gush out of the slave cylinder under pressure?

 

I believe the throw out bearing has something like over 400lbs torque on it if you try to move it...which means that you shouldn't be able to move it by hand, even if your the strongest person alive! HAH, yea if you can move it, then theres something wrong. If I'm wrong, someone correct me. Thanks

 

Wow, that's awesome! I'm trying to envision how an input shaft could be designed to be removable with the tranny in place. I'm trying to envision how a throwout bearing could do the same. I'm also trying to envision how you could get the clutch pressure plate/disk out without removing the transmission. Needless to say, I'm failing miserably at envisioning any of these things

 

With the Vauxhall Astra the way it worked was you opened an inspection panel at the bottom of the bellhousing, then you got three special clips which held the clutch plate together (different design clutch plate that had two discs with a spring trying to push them apart).

Then, behind the driver's wheel there was a panel on the end of the tranny that you could open, and you could actually pull the input shaft out of the tranny.

When you did this the clutch disk dropped out. You put the new clutch disk (with three clips inplace) in through the inspection panel, push the input shaft back into place, bolted the panel closed, removed the trhee clips and close the inspection panel. You're done. 30 mins.

You can get a new clutch for like $150 installed.

 

That is awesome! That's gotta greatly limit the availability of aftermarket clutches, though. I wonder how it affects the strength/reliability of it. Of course, at $150 to replace the whole thing, who cares

 

A lot of cars are designed like this. When I came to the US and found out that a new clutch on a Maxima or Taurus was over $500 I was like

 

Yep, def not the disc but the hydraulic system. Hope it was just low and the cylinders are still intact.