Hey, i'm having some trouble with my car. I just did my vq35 swap, and the engine starts and runs fine, but I CANNOT get the car into gear when the car is on (5spd). I just put a brand new Spec Stage 2 Clutch on the car, with new throwout bearing. This is what I have tried thus far:

bled the clutch (3 times)
new (used, but many lower miles) clutch slave cylinder

We bled again after installing the new slave cylinder.
I compared the length of the piston in to piston out on the slae cylinder on a working 5spd, and it looks the same on my car, and i definitely have good pressure in the pedal.

I put in 4 quarts of fluid on the tranny (MT-90), and everything should be running, but the car still doesnt want to go into gear.

I tried starting the car in gear, and holding down the brake, and it wanted to crawl forward, and when i released the clutch a little bit it wanted to stall. I couldnt get it out of gear, however.

I've taken out my tranny twice and taken out and reinstalled my clutch and TO bearing 3 times to check that they're installed properly. this isn't my first time doing this, and that's all the more reason i'm stumped.



I've already had vipervadim, Scooobay, liquidvenom, and meccanoble over my house to check out the problem, and we couldn't solve it.

I'm using the stock clutch lines.

maybe it could be that the fork which releases the TO bearing is bent?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I really need a solution to this problem, as i need my car ready for Nissan Day at Englishtown..and i still need to break in this new clutch.


Thanks in advance,
-Freddy

 

Can you change gears with the car off?

 

And would the bent fork cause the clutch to stick(never worked on manuals). It seems like it would so why not replace that?

 

yes, it can engane gears witht the car off no problem.

I looked in the fsm, and it says the clutch disc could have oil on it, and the pressure plate may not be on right.

I used 2 different kinds of bolts for the clutch, as i lost some of them, but I used 12mm bolts with the same thread pattern, and i torqued them down somewhat the same.

I do remember the clutch disc having some oil on it, as it was a material i've never seen before, feels like suede or something. I remember on part of it was dirty during the install. The pressure plate and flywheel were both clean though.

Maybe it's because i didnt use the oem bolts to tighten down the clutch?

 

if it tried to crawl then it was still grabbing on the clutch even with the pedal fully depressed. i would say either your fork is bad or your pedal is out of adjusment. make sure that you are getting the max travel with the pedal then check to make sure the fork is ok.

 

clutch is not disengaging, my car was the same, extremely hard to shift while on. I had to add a spacer to the slave cylinder rod to make it push the fork further. This could also be done with a TO bearing spacer.

 

not a bad idea, i was thinking of the same thing. How did you make the spacer? just put something inside the boot of the slave cylinder?

 

not inside the boot, I put a spacer between the rod and the shift fork.

 

what did you use? and how does it stay on without falling off?

 

You should never have to add extras to the clutch release system to get it to work properly.

Tavarish i would suggest adjusting the pedal by loosening the locknut and turning the piston that goes from the pedal to the MC.

 

i'll try that as well.

 

Yeah... try adjusting the clutch pedal so that it is higher and can have more distance between the floor. Maybe this will let the clutch disengage more but it sucks because you have to press the clutch all the way down now to shift. I push mine down a quarter of an inch to shift.

 

i'll ghetto rig anything as long as it works the way i want it to. I'm tired of not having a car to drive.

 

Considering I think you started last week. You are doing very well for timing. And to think out of the swap, you didn't have an issue there. I'm very impressed. When the pics going to be up or are there none?

 

yea i was impressed with how fast he got that 3.5 in and no problems. His car is pretty quiet with headers, they look so beautiful.

HIs clutch pedal seems to move pretty good, has a pretty smooth motion from top to bottom.

I would recommend looking into pedal adjustment as well. I just dont understand why its giving problems in this area now when it was working fine before anything was taken down. IF pedal didnt need adjustment before, why would it need it now? Doesnt sound like the answer but i pray it works 4 u.

 

i have 70-something pics, i'm doing a writeup. I'll post it up when my car actually works.

 

maybe he had another crazy russian there to help him getting the engine built right

 

once u get it workin im sure ur gonna be happy...u wont believe all the oils and rocks i had in my hair when i left ur place....



tell ur mom i said hi :-p

 

yea, that hair is like a sponge or something. Mom's sleeping right now, but i'll put in a good word for you, and thanks for giving me that extra oomph to wanna nail my girlfriend. Today was short skirt and cleavage day.


Back on topic...i'll try out the pedal adjustment and spacer ideas before i drop the tranny AGAIN for no good reason.

 

and when he says crazy....25 hours straight from tuesday to wednesday. We had nothing but gremlins and Trent Reznor keeping us company.

 

I hope you're done by Friday at least. Good luck man!

 

LOL, those two vq35 swappin' russians are definitely insane..

and those gremlins stealing all the needed sockets and wrenches..

Fred my camera said the motor was inside the engine bay supported on the crossmember with no wiring/IM/tranny at 3:53am, we cranked it to start at 12:33 noon.


here's a few teaser shots for the gearheads
pic1: notice the stock vq35 cam dowel/holes
pic2: vq30 inner timing chain w/ cam adapters
pic3: vq35 assembled ready to be put in









and here's what I did after we got everything installed, and vq35 started on the first really long crank (time for fuel pressure to build up)

 

that damn cat was sleeping on the job.

 

Something must be wrong with my setup then, because I adjusted my pedal all the way out, and it still wasn't enough, so I had to add a spacer.

 

the same thing with me. I added a spacer, and i took my new vq35 for a drive. I think i need a bigger spacer, as it's very hard to get into gear. Maybe it's because we're both 5spd converts?

would you happen to have a pic of the spacer you have? Mine doesnt look very sturdy.

 

I don't have a pic, but its just a machined metal collar that fits on the end of the rod.

 

It runs and drives now, I used the spacer idea. I couldnt adjust the pedal anymore, it was backed out all the way. I'll be upgrading to SS lines soon, and the clutch will be broken in, so shifting will improve.

 

oh yeah, Fred, looks like the 24th at e-town should be a nice day, expecially if TJ fixes his setup in time

 

Thas a good job u did tavarish. How many vq35 swaps do u have under ur belt now? What headers did you use? Keep us posted when its totally complete.

 

Maxblack97, the swap is totally complete..

tavarish took it for a drive today, after getting the spacer on the Clutch Slave Cylinder.

This was the first 3.5L swap we did.
(but we have another one coming up soon)

 

Yall are going to do mine when I'm ready.

 

My Car Was Stolen

 

I just read this in the 4th gen man I'm really sorry. I hope you find it and the person or people.

 

I hope it wasnt someone (a lurker) from the org. That really sucks. I dont know what Id do if some one stole my s13 after I finished the VQ30 swap im planning, Id be mad as H311!!

~Alex

 

More than likely it was an inside job. I'm not posting any mods I do anymore.

 

I would have to think that if they REALLY knew what you had...you wouldn't have gotten the car back with the engine, right? I agree with you though, you shouldn't disclose your mods from now on.

 

Agreed. If they knew they would have stripped the car... not took it for a joy ride mess it up and ditch it.

 

Dont know if you still feel like doing this , but if you do. Ill be very please to read it , there is so much questions left in my mind since 'its my 1st swap'

Still havent received my spacer/adaptor from tilley.

anyways it suck really BAD, i am paranoing about getting my cars stole
hope you caught the fu*cker, and get the car back

 

Congrads, my dudes. Keep up the good workk. Get sum rest in between runs for your next couple of swaps coming up real soon.