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Few things first off. First post to this awesome forum. Eric the Car Guy is amazing! His videos have been a huge help to me. And yes, I have read through a lot of posts and watched a few videos before posting this.
I have a 1999 Acura Integra GS-R. I love this thing. I’ve had it for over 7 yrs now and its practically bullet-proof. 261K+ with a lot of life left in it. My daily driver and occasional track car. OK, OK, I’ll get on with it already….sorry.
So, a couple weeks ago, I was gettin’ on it in first gear. Just nailed it. I went to bang second gear and chirp it, but instead something bad happened. It initially felt like I just missed the gear. To settle everything down I just put the clutch in, found neutral and rolled it to a stop to assess. The clutch seemed a little spongy and soft. While I didn’t see any smoke, there was a distinct smell I remember. When I put it in gear to start off again, I heard a low grinding growl. But I had to get home so I figured if I could just get it going and find a gear, I could make it. I got it rolling after some growling and bucking and quickly hit second gear. Seemed fine. Third gear, yup. Fourth gear…ok, I can make it home with that.
Once home, I re-assessed. First gear sounded nasty getting started. Reverse…same thing. Once I get it rolling though, 2nd – 5th gears seem normal.
After getting on ETCG website and after reading a few posts and watching a few videos, I did a couple checks. Master clutch cylinder was dry and I had fluid coming down on the clutch pedal and paint peeling away. The master was toast. So, I replaced the master clutch and slave clutch cylinders with OE Acura parts and a small clutch pipe off the slave, bled the system and took it for a ride. Same noises, same problems. When I backed it up my driveway, it was nasty. Grinding, smoke, the smell was distinct. Feeling it was above me, I took it to my nearby shop. (Sigh)
After 4 days, they finally called me back and said that they took it out 3 different times and couldn’t find a thing wrong with it. Baffled, but hopeful, I settled up with them and took my car home. I babied it about half way home. I got on it a little and ran it through the gears. Seemed OK, but knowing this car like I do, something still wasn’t right. By the time I got it home, it was making the same similar noises again and even bucked once while starting off in 1st gear. Unbelieveable! How could they not experience this.
I wanted to really test it though and took it to work the next day (today). Bad idea. I should’ve turned around and grabbed another car, but I didn’t. It wasn’t too bad going the 38 miles to work, but coming home was awful. I could feel the clutch pedal vibrating when I depressed it only about an inch. The clutch wanted to engage about an inch from the floor. At times, I felt like I was changing gears with no clutch, just jamming it in there. A few times accelerating through the gears, the RPM’s revved up like the clutch was slipping. I backed off immediately and it settled down. I can’t reverse at all now. 1st gear is really rough. I used to be able to launch this car and spin the tires and chirp 2nd. Now, I feel like I need to park downhill to get a rolling start.
So, ETCG peeps, what is it? Throw out/pilot bearing? Clutch plate? Flywheel? All of the above? The throw out bearing went on this car about 5-6 years ago, and it acted similarly, but I could still drive it. This is way worse.
Please help. I’m supposed to take the car back to the incompetent repair shop to take them for a ride and show them what it’s doing.
Sincerely, Stuck in Stafford
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A clutch job consists of pilot and throwout bearings, disc and pressure plate. Usually the flywheel is machined or replaced. So, whatever part is at fault, it gets replaced. Doing any less after the work or expense of pulling the transmission does not make sense.
It sounds like your clutch components need some inspection.
what did everything look like? fly wheel,clutch disc/springs
Pressure plate? look for anything burned or scored. Can you go
through the gears without the car running? This may tell us if
the gear box is having an issue.http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-transmission-problems
Sorry to say but I think your transmission has issues inside and not the clutch at all since your problem is in first and reverse. Usually those gears are on the same shaft.
I’m not able to take a look at the clutch components. I can shift through the gears without the car running. Thanks for the link. Will check out.
I am fearing that you may have two problems at the same time here. You may be in for a clutch job, and a replacement transmission as well. The bucking, and difficulty shifting sounds exactly like my Accord was behaving just before the transmission gave up, and the sudden revving up sounds like the clutch slipping.
[quote=”Tomh” post=108226]I am fearing that you may have two problems at the same time here. You may be in for a clutch job, and a replacement transmission as well. The bucking, and difficulty shifting sounds exactly like my Accord was behaving just before the transmission gave up, and the sudden revving up sounds like the clutch slipping.[/quote]
If it makes you feel any better, both failing at the same time means you only have to pay for the labor once.
Thanks Tomh and Barney. I brought the car back to the repair shop yesterday. The owner came out and took a ride with me. He felt the vibration in the clutch pedal immediately. And the car acted up as it did for me. He said that I need a new pressure plate and they are going to resurface the flywheel as well. Thankfully, the $140 that I spent for them to “drive it around” for 3 days and “found nothing wrong” they are going to put toward this job. They didn’t have to do that but the owner was surprised that I was even charged. They are supposed to complete the repair tomorrow (Monday), so I’ll report back and let you folks know how it turned out.
Just FYI, 1st and R are the ones that are impossible to engage, if you do not have good clutch RELEASE. As in – there should be NO torque supplied from engine to the input shaft.
That leaves you with 2 options – bad pressure plate or air in hydraulic system.
YES, I read loud and clear you had it replaced and BLED. But I had DIY job done on my son’s Eclipse when we had to bleed it THREE times same day, as it kept catching air.
I simply do not believe that you had working clutch no problem, with obvious dry hydraulics causing issue, and it suddenly went bad. Unless you had it on its last leg anyway, and simply fried, trying to get through all those adventures you described. SMELL sure says so.
Tell them to check you hydraulics install for leaks and re-bleed the system. Don’t pay twice.UPDATE: Thanks for everyone’s responses. Bottom line. I had a new clutch kit installed. Got the car back yesterday. Working better now. Couple observations. Clutch engages really high on the clutch pedal. 1st and Reverse gears still a little “chatty”. Hoping that these are just new clutch break-in issues. I have a 6 month warranty on the new clutch so we’ll see how it goes. Glad to have my teggy back on the road.
I’ve run into this issue before and it’s normally that a spring fell out of the clutch disc and got wedged between the pressure plate and the clutch. That said, you should not be clutching up high now unless you didn’t get your master cylinder adjustment correct. Also, I don’t normally machine the flywheels on those when I do a clutch. If it’s not done correctly, it can cause the chatter you mention. I actually talk about this issue as well as show how to adjust the clutch hydraulics here.
http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-transmission-problems
Thanks for the updates and for using the ETCG forum.
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