Hey everybody, my newly acquired '89 GTU seems to have some sort of clutch problem. Here's whats going on....
1) The clutch won't start to engage until the pedal is about 4-5 inches away from the firewall. This is a lot more than my Toyota truck which engages a lot sooner.
2) After the engine and tranny are nice and warm, the car sometimes shudders when trying to take off from a stop. It only does this if I engage the clutch slowly. If I take off in a semi-hurry, I can't notice it as much. The car doesn't have this problem in the mornings when i first start it up.
3) When it does sudder, the shifter starts shaking, and if it gets bad enough, the whole car will shake pretty good.

Any clue as to what this could be???? The clutch was replaced at AIM in Indy and has 40,000 miles on it, so it should still be in pretty good shape. The flywheel was resurfaced then as well.
Thanks for any help

 

Racing beat makes a really nice engine torque brace to eliminate the 1st gear, and reverse shaking. My old 89 use to do the same thing. Check in to it.

 

the clutch is chattering. get a new clutch and pressure plate. the previous owner probably had a really heavy foot. or bent fingers on the pressure plate.

ps
i'm ase certified tech

 

If it is only doing chattering occasionally I would look at the engine and tranny mounts

 

yeah its only doing it occaisonaly, and with more practice I can make it almost disappear, but you have to be really "careful" I guess when starting off. Its weird that it would only do it after its been running for a while. I'm talking regular driving, not drag racing or anything, so its not putting abnormally high forces on the clutch.
I will check those mounts although I don't think its the problem.

 

if you want to change the pedal engagement height then you can bleed the system and i would check your tps adjustment for the starting off bucking. also check out your plugs and wires you could be not getting a good spark on leading plugs. oh and some times if your fuel filter is realy dirty this can happen as well, besides it's always good to start with a good base when diagnosing anything.

james