For some time now the clutch in my 2003 SE has been making an obnoxious noise. Sometimes it's a creaking like an old screen door with rusty hinges and other times it's a loud clunking sound with a springy twang to it.

I applied lithium grease to various points of contact and to the rod that goes into the master cylinder. That took care of the situation for a while but it kept coming back. The sound has been getting worse and lately the pedal has failed to return fully on a few occasions.

After searching for clutch noise on the forums I didn't find what I thought was the answer. I am aware that the master cylinder may be on it's way out but fluid level is steady and I'm hoping what I'm about to show you resolves my issue.

Looking up into the dash you can see a small bushing in the middle of the return spring. Mine was clearly damaged and not functioning correctly. Unfortunately the picture I took was too fuzzy to use.

Here are the tools I used


Here is the replacement part

It was clean when I got it, this was after a test fit.

This is what mine looked like after 124K miles


I wasn't entirely certain how to tackle this job but it quickly became apparent that taking the whole assembly down was not going to happen. There are only 2 nuts to remove but they must have been installed before the dash. Range of motion on the wrench was maybe 2 or 3 degrees, it would have taken a very long time to get them off at that rate. So I went for spring compression. I was able to wiggle the quick grip clamp up into the space and pop the spring out.

Another good use for grip clamps

My drive way is just inclined enough to be annoying, this kept the door from closing on my leg constantly.

The bushing fits in the middle of the spring like this


Looking up into the dash. Red arrow points to where the bushing fits



The bushings that the ends of the spring fit into took a beating during re-installation. If they fail I think I'll seriously consider selling the car or maybe paying to get the job done

First Step
Lock the clutch pedal down. It's almost like Nissan planned for this with travel stop placement.

I can see in the picture that I was a bit overzealous with the grease.

Getting the spring back in was much harder than getting it out because practically every time I touched the spring the bushing would fall out. This kept me from being able to use the clamp to reverse the removal procedure.

After several attempts to brute force the spring in by hand and a vicious cut on my knuckle I decided to take a different approach.


And it almost worked.

I wasn't able to adjust the spacing just right outside the car and pulling sideways on the zip tie just dislocated the whole assembly. Fortunately I have pretty good reflexes and managed not to get a black eye.

More thinking



I finally came up with this


That yellow stuff is the where the Maxima logo came off my floor mat, not some toxic human ooze or anything.
With this set up I was able to set the spring in place and pull down to get the width just right. Once both sides of the spring were in the pivot bushings I cut the cable tie and the spring tension did the rest of the work.

Finished assembly



Both my wife and I have driven the car and the clutch feel is good, I thought it felt a little light but that could be the lack of metal to metal contact. Best part is there was no grating noise with every clutch press.