Panic transmission help

[ukemike]

We just got our car back together. We have an h22 transmission in there now. When not running it shifts very easily. When it is running and the clutch is in it will just barely go into gear. We really have to muscle it. When driving it shifts easily enough. Ww can't figure out what is wrong.

[ukemike]

We jacked it up and ran it. We now believe that the clutch is not fully disengaging. We have a new clutch in there too. It is a heavier clutch. We bled the slave cylinder. There was no air in it.

How do you adjust the clutch?

[Raf99]

Does double clutching help? If so you have a pressure/air issue with the MC / SC that's not allowing the clutch to fully disengage to allow shifting.

OR this could be a shift cable issue too.

does this happen in all gears?

[ukemike]

Does double clutching help? If so you have a pressure/air issue with the MC / SC that's not allowing the clutch to fully disengage to allow shifting.

OR this could be a shift cable issue too.

does this happen in all gears?

Yes it is hard to get into all the gears. We can shift while driving (around the block once).

We did jack it up the front. With it in neutral and the clutch in or out the front wheels would stop turning. With it in any gear with the clutch pedal all the way down you could not make the front wheel stop at all. So when the car is on the ground and the wheels cannot turn we can't get it into gear at all.

I'm concerned that we'll need to drop the tranny again and machine the flywheel down a bit. God that would be hard to do before the race on 7/30 and 7/31.

[Granite CB7]

How much stroke do you have at the slave cyl? IIRC it should be around 3/4" and I can grab a measurement off my car later on. I don't mean to insult you either but was the pressure plate tightened in a criss-cross pattern?

[ukemike]

good questions. 3/4" sounds about what it looked like. I didn't measure it.

I believe we did tighten the pressure plate in a criss cross. I know we did for the flywheel, because I did that. My teammate did the pressure plate. I'll check in the morning. I'll also measure the slave cylinder throw.

My plan for tomorrow is to bleed the system thoroughly, and then adjust the pedal. We do have too much slack before it starts to engage. If those fail, I'm lost. I don't even know what we would do if we re-opened it. Install the old clutch over the new flywheel maybe.

[Raf99]

......double clutch......help ?

[ukemike]

......double clutch......help ?

I did not drive it. Tedd, my co-owner / teammate did. But he reported it shifted a little stiff when driving. While sitting still, double clutching did not help.

[Tishock]

You can remove the starter and use an offset wrench to check if the bolts are loose on the pressure plate.

[ukemike]

Fixed



The clutch was not disengaging fully. We ordered a new master and slave, but those won't arrive until Wednesday so I came up with an idea. At the max adjustment the full stroke of the clutch pedal was only getting just under 0.5" of travel of the slave piston rod. There was lots of slack in the pedal before there was enagement. I don't know why, but we fixed it. I took the bracket that connects the master cylinder rod to the pedal arm off. I took the bracket to the hard ware store and found a nut and bolt that matched the threads. We use the bolt as a guide and welded the nut onto the bracket which gave me an extra 3/8" or so of range for adjustment. Then I adjusted it like ericthecarguy on youtube showed me. Then we started it up and it shifts so smooth. Like a hot knife through butter. That clutch is lots heavier and really grabs. In one trip around the block I didn't get a chance to make the LSD work but... WE ARE GOING TO MAKE THE RACE!!!! WOOHOO!

I bet that the root of the problem is that the flywheel is too thick.

Thanks everyone for the input. I was really panicking last night.