Alright so first off the car is a 2002 Maxima with the 6 speed transmission. The clutch was put in the car 2 summers ago and now has roughly maybe 10-15k miles on it. The clutch was the Exedy OE replacement clutch and pressure plate. For the past 2 years the car has drove fine, however about a week and a half ago I was driving the car and the shifting felt a little bit more "notchy" than regular and when I came to a stop I could not get the car into gear. I finally managed to muscle my way into first gear so I could take off and then after that I didn't really seem to have any problems.

Well last night I was going up to a carshow which is about an hour and a half drive (of course it would do it when I'm that far away from home ) and as I was in a parking lot at a restaurant the car when stopped would not go into gear, and reverse felt like there is a concrete wall stopping me from putting it in gear. Now while the car is moving it shifts alright but it definitely takes more effort and is more notchy than normal. So my original thought was that maybe I had developed a leak somewhere in the hydraulics and needed to evaluate that. So I looked and didn't visibly see anything so I decided to go ahead and bleed the system. I did get a little air out of the larger bleeder valve on the strut tower but nothing serious. Afterwards the car seemed to be alright setting still in the garage but when I took the car for a test drive it started having the same symptoms. There is no noise that I can hear that would make me suspect the throw out bearing, I also checked the fluid level in the transmission and it seems to be right up to the top plug on the transmission, the slave cylinder/clutch arm has a pretty good range of motion when pushing down the clutch pedal, and the clutch seems to still be functioning properly when taking off etc... It just seems like maybe the clutch isn't fully disengaging but I can't think of what the cause would be. I'm really hoping that it isn't already time for a new clutch/pressure plate as the one in the car is still pretty new.

But I was just wondering if anyone on here had a car with the same issues and what you ended up doing to fix your problem. I read a thread from a couple months ago where the guy had similar symptoms and had to replace his clutch assembly so I'm hoping that's not the case.

 

Small update, I messed around a little today with some things like pulling the boot off the slave cylinder to check for fluid and it was bone dry, I messed with the pedal adjustment in desperation hoping that would help but had no effect. One thing I have noticed is this is a very intermittent problem it seems like, sometimes I can get in the car and push the clutch in and I can move through the gears easily while stopped and then if I let the clutch out and push it in again it's like I am locked out of the gears.

 

I recently broke one of the springs on the clutch itself. I was driving around with intermittent problems for several months (I later realized). Many sound like yours. Until one day, I came to a stop and nada - no gears.

So, you could have a broken spring or pressure plate finger.

Obvioulsy, you want to rule out the clutch system first. I have a 5spd and can see the spot where the actuator pushes on the clutch fork which in turn moves the throwout bearing.

If you could compare the travel of the acutator/fork when you aren't having problems with when you are having problems, that might help. Would need a friend.

And, of course, I assume that the clutch fluid is full and not dropping down.

 

Thanks for the reply!

Yea it seems like several people from what I've read this has been the diagnosis, I checked all the hydraulics and I'm not losing any fluid so I'm starting to think this may be my problem as well. I ordered 3 quarts of redline mt90 that I'm going to swap in hopes of desperation it will help. That way i can also look for any abnormal metal shavings in the transmission when i drain the old stuff out so i can rule out the transmission as the cause. If that doesn't do anything then I suppose it will be time to drop the transmission and have a look.

 

I've used MT90 a bunch and go ahead and try it. However, if your trans fluid is full, I just don't see how that is going to make a difference.

Hopefully, you have better luck than I did. First the clutch went . . . then a couple of weeks later the trans went. No fun doing that job twice.

The used trans I got has a bit of crunch in 3rd and I'm going to switch to MT-90 to see if that helps.

 

Yea, Im just going to try it before I drop the transmission. The only thing I'm confused about is all the people saying a spring broke, if I'm remembering correctly I thouhht the OE clutch wasn't a sprung clutch disk? So I'm also wondering if maybe the flywheel might be the cause.

 

How does the shift bracket look, the one under the intake box? And damage or looseness?

 

It's still in good shape, that's a good thought though because a few years ago I snapped the original bracket and the car lost all shifting ability so that could have definitely been an issue, but I checked that all over and the linkages and bracket are all still in good working order.

 

Another update:

The car still intermittently becomes difficult to put into gear, in addition to the Redline MT90 gear oil which should be here tomorrow I also ordered a set of ES shifter bushings as my factory banjo bushing in the engine bay is almost non-existent lol so im wondering if maybe this could be a cause, they need to be changed regardless and it was cheap so I figured why not. This weekend I'm going to swap the bushings and fluid and ill post my results. I'm going to keep this updated so if and when I figure out the problem I will be able to post the solution. There are sooo many dead end threads where people have a problem and never post back so others can see what worked to fix it so I'm going to make sure I let everyone know the cause once I find it.

 

sounds like the exact same symptoms I had when my slave cyl went bad. Mine was leaking so I knew it when I looked, its possible your seals are bad in the master which would have the same symptoms and its also possible you just have more air in there. Ive found that bleeding the slave while its still on the trans is worthless. Try pulling the slave off the trans and holding it up in the air so that the line to it only goes up, use a clamp to *very carefully* bleed the slave cyl without overextending the piston. Then once you have it so no air is coming out or it feels good, put the slave back on and bleed it again while on the trans.

Ive also found that getting someone to press the pedal, then slowly open the bleeder and close it before fluid stops coming out works best.

FWIW the OE clutch disc doesnt have springs in it. If you have an aftermarket flywheel the disc would have springs. It seems unlikely that the clutch disc/pressure plate would be the problem though unless you managed to break a bunch of the "fingers" on the pressure plate

 

Update:

I installed the ES bushings today, although I'm not 100% certain it cured my problems I was having I will say that they made a huge difference in shifting performance. Regardless of if this fixed my problem I would recommend taking the 15 minutes to swap these bushings out for the factory ones. My shifter feels completely different than before and there is almost no play anymore.

So as of this point now, I have re-bled the clutch, I did some small adjusting on the pedal but I don't think this effects much besides pedal free play, and installed the ES shifter bushings. The car has not been "locked" out of gear like last Saturday since I have changed these things, however occasionally the car does still seem to take a little extra effort to go into gear. This weekend I also plan to swap out my fluid for the Redline MT90 that showed up today and see if this will help at all.

 

You might want to check that you didnt mess to much with the clutch adjuster rod the runs from the inside of the car through the firewall. On my g35 I messed with it to much and had a similiar problem. I am not to sure how to "reset" the adjustment but I am sure its on the forum somewhere. Start with making sure is tight and not free moving.

I would also consider swapping out your slave. Intermediate problems with clutch's usually involve a slave cy swap. And you dont want to rule out a bad bearing... Although it sucks cause you have to pull out everything to get at it, you dont want to rule it out. Most of the time it will squeal (cause its a bearing) when its worn out... Sometimes the bearing isnt sitting perfectly when installed and compounds through use to give you an inproper shift.

 

I've literally been having the same problems. I replaced the entire hydraulic system to no avail, replaced the shifter bushings and put in MT-90... I mean those things are all nice to have anyways but still i was PISSSSSED..

and I even got someone to pry on the release fork, and that actually made it perfectly easy to get into every gear. So i figured the fingers on the pressure plate were messed up or there were hotspots on the flywheel since it seemed like the clutch wasn't fully disengaging.

Well, I bought a new exedy clutch kit and dropped the tranny today (which was NOT fun). and turns out the guy who had it before me must have replaced the stuff recently because it was all brand new.... EXCEPT for the flywheel...

So I figured, hmm must have been a cheap clutch kit, I mean the fingers looked thinner and different from the exedy one, but I have no idea.

I sanded down the messy looking flywheel. Yet, i noticed there was some lateral movement on the flywheel...Seemed worn to me.
Like I could obviously move it clockwise and counterclockwise, since that is the point of the dual-mass....but it also had a of play in it when pushing on the opposite sides.

Decided to put it back together with the new stuff anyway and benchpressed the bellhousing (sucked even more than dropping it)... and I noticed that when i step on the pedal the pressure plate moves (ever-so-slightly)...

My diagnosis is: That dang dual-mass flywheel is worn and sloppy and its the culrpit..

Now the question is, buy another dual mass flywheel? Or buy a sold flywheel, and get a sprung clutch. Decisions, decisions.

I've spent a lot of money tracking this problem down, and I'll be damned if this new flywheel doesn't fix it. It's literally the last thing possible.

You might have the same problem. GOOD LUCK.

At least one good thing came out of this whole endeavor. Turns out I have a tranny from an '04 with a helical limited slip differential in my '02 max. Wooo

 

Finished putting flywheel in. Looks like that fixed the problem. Also, my timing was at 8 degrees idle before i replaced everything... Now its back to 17 degrees, so my flywheel must have been causing that too?

Hope you fixed your issue.