Hey everyone. I just purchased a 94 SE with the 5 speed. The car is great but the clutch is out of adjustment and it picks up right off the floorboard. What is the procedure to adjust the freeplay on the clutch and what is the acceptable range for it? Thanks for the help!

 

The rod that actuates the master cylinder is actually threaded into the clutch pedal, with a lock nut. Real easy adjustment.

I just did mine yesterday because my new ACT clutch had the same problem. If you think of the two extremes that you can adjust it from, (just free of the bearing to just clearing th eclurtch off the flywheel) I set it to the extreme where I just had the specified freeplay to take any tension off of the throw out bearing. Then I further adjusted so that the clutch begins to engage pretty quickly upon coming up from the floor, and is fully engaged at about 2/3 of the way from the floor. I was pleased to find how large the settable range was without putting the t/o bearing in a squeeze.

Good luck,

John

 

Before adjusting the clutch, make sure you bleed the air out of the line. Mine has 2 bleeder screws - one at the slave cyl, and one in a block on the left side strut tower. The one on the tower is not shown in the FSM, and is supposed to be bled after the other one. (Thanks to dch95 for this tip!)

 

When you bleed, do yourself a favor and flush through all the old fluid. It could well be as old as your car.

I have to look for the second bleed port you mentioned. Never saw it or heard of it.

John

 

when I first bought my car, the clutch did the same thing.. I checked the fluid inthe clutch master cyl, and it looked like grey mud! didn't even resemble brake fluid!
I sucked it out with something and filled with new fluid, and bled until clean fluid came out the other end. the GF was about to kill me cause I had her pumping the pedal... ;-)

still didn't make much of a difference in the pedal height, but the clutch itself felt better. I was too lazy to ever adjust it, so I just bought an ACT to replace it with.

now I just have to get the tranny out of the shop so I'll have something to put together!

 

It made a little difference here, but not nearly as much as I had hoped. After rebuilding both slave and master cylinders, flushing/bleeding, and adjusting the pedal for maximum travel, it STILL feels like it lets out close to the floor. Don't know what else to do but live with it (unless someone knows where to get larger bore master cylinders or smaller bore slaves)!

 

You may be adjusting the wrong thing. You don't want to adjust the pedal travel, you want to adjust the pedal attachment to the rod that actuates the piston. It's way up there. Mine came up like yours. When I first adjusted it. it engaged WAY up on the high side, then I adjusted it back to have a nice midway engagement. I don't see how you can NOT have any different engagement if you are adjusting the same thing. It mechanically changes the pedal position for the same position of the master cylinder piston. Take an other look, and see if it will work.

John

 

The rod end is held against the master cyl piston by a disk and spring clip (ie, it can't pull away from the piston). When I tighten the nut on the rod, it actually pulls the pedal away from the upper stop (thus shortening the pedal stroke). When I adjust the nut the other way (with the pedal against the stop), it pushes the piston into the cylinder, reducing its available stroke. Either way, I get less volume of fluid per pump. I appreciate the info, though!