I got a call from my wife tonight saying the car has died. It is an 83 with the 6 cyl. manual transmission approx. 170K on it, it has run like a charm.

When she was driving down the freeway it started to die and acted as if she needed to push the clutch in. The RPM's were also jumping around by about 2500 in either direction. It finally died. I told her to try and drive it, she got a few feet and it died again.

It just got towed to my house about 20 min. ago. It started up no problem and I was able to go forward and backward with no problem. When I stepped on the gas (not holding it there, just punching it) it seemed like the tach was stalling just slightly before it went down, this was at about 4k RPM's. Since it is cold as hell and late I am not messing with it now. I did check the clutch fluid resevoir and it seemed fine. My first thought is that it might be something to do with the clutch fluid, resevoir, etc.

Does anyone out there have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance for any help. Rat

 

Either your not getting enough feul or something is restricting airflow? Doesn't sound like a clutch problem unless the pedal stays stuck to the floor or the rpms climb and the car doesn't accelerate.