This is kind of a followup to an earlier post.

I had the clutch slave cylinder replaced last week and then the master yesterday.

Now, the clutch pedal is a couple of inches too high, and the pickup point is in the middle of the clutch travel rather than near the bottom (so that I have at least a couple of inches of travel at the bottom of the range where nothing happens).

When I drove it this morning for the first time since the changing of the master, the clutch slipped when I nailed it in 3rd.

So, I took it to another branch of the shop this morning near work so I wouldn't have to be without the car. They are going to make me take it back to the original shop to get the clutch pedal issue straightened out but the service reps at BOTH SHOPS are saying that the slipping cannot be related to the clutch pedal issue and that the clutch is bad.

The clutch is a JWT, I installed it, it has about 20k at most on it and about 1.5 years. It has not even been driven hard. More importantly, it has given no indication of any problem until today. Now it slips pretty massively under full throttle.

All I can figure is that somehow the slave is not fully releasing the piston to allow the clutch to make full contact with the flywheel. To me that makes sense. And it makes sense because there appears to be a problem in the clutch hydraulic system that is making the clutch pedal the way it is.

I haven't spoken to the head tech yet - but the service reps are basically telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.

What say you oh wise ones? I need some backup here . . .

 

I did replace my clutch lasst Fall, and took tranny off last month again to fix diff bearing. After clutch replacement I made the clutch slipp twice, and that thing stinks when it burns.. I found a nice burnet mark on the flywheel..
Anyways, what I found was some grease on the shaft and on the pressure plate that shouldn't be there. I didn't grease those points when installing the clutch. What I am thinking is that I could have overgreased it and drops of it fell on mating surface. Or maybe pressure plate is deffective and doesn't prerss hard enough.

Also, if the tranny is leaking into the clutch housing, that could cause it.

There is an inspection hole in the botton from engine side, open it and see if you see any oil or grease in there

Good luck.

 

Just in case somone ever looks at this thread - the problem would get worse the longer I drove the car. So, if I drove for 45mins, the clutch would slip so badly that you couldn't drive the car.

I suspected the clutch wasn't properly bled and had an argument with the desk jockey at the shop where he basically told me I didn't know what I was talking about.

Later in the day, the tech called me to tell me I was correct - there was air in the slave cylinder.

 

Air in the linw wouldn't make the clutch slip. The natural position of the clutch in fully engaged. Air would make the clutch not release all the way.

There in an adjustment for the pedal height and travel. The rod going from the pedal arm into the master can adjust those.

If they spilled hydrolic fluid through the opening in the bell housing that would cause the clutch to slip.

 

I would agree with you if the problem had been constant. It was not; it became gradually worse as driving time increased.

It was pretty clear to me that as time went on, the clutch was engaging the flywheel less and less. To me, that had to mean that the slave piston was not fully retracting when I let the clutch out.

Here's what would happen:

At startup - no slip; fairly normal pedal feel.

5-10 mins driving - no slip; pedal hard and higher and pickup point a bit higher

20 -30 mins in traffic - massive slip under torque; pedal hard and higher and pick-up point still higher in clutch travel;

45+ mins - slippage makes driving impossible; pick-up point at top of clutch pedal travel.

Let the car rest for a few hours, and the cycle starts over.

Couldn't have been oil because of the cyclical nature and the clutch pedal issues.

That's how I explained it to the 2 service managers who insisted I didn't know anything and that it was my clutch. The tech who fixed the car told me I was correct, that there was air in the slave and that after re-bleeding all was ok. Because of the argument I had with the service manager, it is unlikely they would have told me that if it wasn't true.

Everything works fine now.

 

Did bleeding the line fix this? I am going through the same symptoms you mentioned through out those few minutes and clutch feeling worst

 

No, that's impossible. Something is defective or improperly installed. I think it would be impossible for something else crazy like a cylinder to stick out, but I guess anything (besides are in the system causing slip) is possible.

That shop didn't want to admit fault on what they ****ed up, so they fixed it and lied. In other news, water is wet. Stock clutch line is almost impossible to bleed, so I'm sure it did have air, but that's a scapegoat.