Lately my 1996 I30 with a 5-spd swap hasn't been shifting quite right. This started happening about a month ago and has progressively gotten worse, so bad that I was unable to shift completely and had to be towed back home.

The transmission has about 30k miles on it, completely fresh rebuild with all new OEM basically everything.

The clutch was installed roughly the same time as the tranny and is an Exedy stage 3.

When it started, the car would shift pretty rough, nothing unbearable. As more days passed it progressively got more difficult until I literally had to use my entire body to shift. Now I cannot shift at all without stalling the car out, even when the clutch pedal is fully compressed. It tended to start very rough, get better with 1-5 miles driving then got worse the longer the car was running.

The master cyl was low, but even when filled to the proper level, it did not improve the least bit. The fluid did appear "whispy" sort of like putting milk in a glass of water, I have no clue what that's about but I don't think that would cause the problem. The clutch line is aftermarket stainless, but this was installed some time ago.

Again, there is no movement in the clutch no matter how compressed the pedal and it is impossible to drive.

Any thoughts will be GREATLY appreciated. I want my baby back in full steam soon!

Thanks much!

Phil

 

does you pedddle feel different or does it come all the way up when you press it? have you tried bleeding? that might solve your problem. its very easy to bleed.

 

^^try that first.

i had a similar problem. i think its called the clutch fork. it was bent so when the clutch slave cylinder pushed it, it didnt fully disengage the clutch. it only disengaged correctly when the car was off.

 

Thanks for the advice. The clutch feels mostly the same throughout the motion. Near the bottom is tightens a bit, but not nearly as tight as when it was working fine.

I will try to bleed the clutch, are there any instructions how to do so? I just dred going outside to work on it, damn cold midwest!!!

Emdot - How does the shift fork get bent? Where is that located and how hard was it to replace? The car will shift when turned off.

Thanks again

 

bleeding the clutch is like bleeding brakes. pump,pump,pump,hold, open release valve, close, etc. its a two man operation, unless you have a air pump.

im not sure how it got bent but i did replace my clutch 3 times in a week thinking it was the pressure plates. so it could have gotten bent while removal. its the thing that the slave cylinder pushes. you can move it with your hand to see how much it is supposed to go, then press the clutch pedal down to see how far it actually travels. thats how i found out mine was bad..

 

Ok cool, sounds easy. Where in the car is the slave cylinder? I can't find it for the life of me, also, where is the valve to bleed the line?

Thanks

 

It's the clutch fork, not the shift fork (big difference; internal vs external, function, etc)

Bleeding: http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php/803

 

my bad clutch fork haha. i knew it sounded funny.

edit: the slave is on the trans.

 

The slave cylinder is located directly on the trans, just follow the clutch line down to it. Looking at the engine bay from the front of the car, it'll be almost directly center, underneath the coolant log in front. Just look for a rubber boot on the trans, the slave cylinder is bolted to the trans right next to it.

The lower bleeder is on the slave, the upper is on the left hand strut tower.

 

Thanks for the tutorial on the bleeding. My car is different than the one pictured. The line goes straight from the master to the slave, there is no spot to bleed it. I think this is due to the 5-spd swap and stainless braid line.

How do I end up bleeding something with no release valve? :/

 

since its a braided line, just bleed it from the slave cylinder since oyu dont have the upper release valve anymore.

 

You're lucky, bleeding with a full SS line is much easier than the stock crap system.

As I said above, there is a bleeder on the slave.

Did you not do any bleeding when you first did the swap? You would've had to otherwise your clutch pedal never really would've disengaged the clutch.

 

Perfect, I will do that this evening, thanks for all your help. I will let you know if it fixes it!

 

ya know the other thing you *might* wana check is that wether or not the slave is even responcive. I had this happen on my 84 porche. The slave locked up. You could still depress the pedal, blead the system and everything, but the slave piston was frozen.

Just a visual check you can do, again with two people. just see if its even trying to depress the fork (again if its not bent)

 

I just finished bleeding the clutch and it is fixed. The clutch response is SOOOO much better, the line could have been bled a long time ago. Thanks again for all of your guy's help!