Mods to clutch:

ACT S/S clutch
HD pressure plate
Stainless steel braided clutch line.

Symptoms
Difficulty getting into first gear. This occured over a few kilometers/miles.
Shifting matching revs made things easy.
From a stop, it was getting harder to put into first gear.

Then as things got worse....
The car started to move, when in first gear, and the clutch pedal pressed to the floor (slowly) as if I was slowly letting the clutch out.

Eventually could not get the car into gear at all.

Diagnosis
Checked all connections.
No fluid was leaking.
Rebuilt slave cylinder, despite no fluid leaking out of rubber boot. (Wondering if it was the master cylinder.
Checked through the inspection port, and the clutch rod was moving.

Took things apart hoping to find the pilot bearing shot, and it was a bent fork arm/broke/cracked.

Anyways, I have one on order and it will be back together tomorrow

A search of the forums have shown that this condition is mostly due to the pilot bearing grenading itself (improperly installed, or perhaps not greased), but there are a few cases of the forks breaking/bending, and I guess I was one of them.

Hope somebody can learn from this experience.

Cheers

thesaint
H

 

keep the clutch pedal to the floor, hold it for about 20-30 seconds, does it stay? Or feel like its not working?

MASTER CYCLINDER without a doubt. Doesnt have to be leaking to do that, it can bleed over to the other side without even knowing it except for doing this.

 

i had the exact same symptoms as you, THE EXACT, i thought it was the clutch fork so i ordered a new one, it turned out the previous owner had left some metel behind when he replaced the clutch the last time and a piece of metel got jammed in the clutch fork! i hope it works out for you, i would be interested in know exactly what it is. i ended up buying a whole new racing clutch kit and a clutch fork before i found out what it was, man i was pissed! good luck

 

SORRY SO LONG!

I had the same situation! And my problems were similar:

Hard to go in first! Before all this happened!

Then one night the clutch wouldn't engage enough to
even start my car . . . so i had some of my buddies push
start me (in front of a bunch of people form a car show).
The next day i went and adjusted the clutch from inside
the car (back of clutch pedal). Lowered car and took it
for a spin. Went down two long blocks and came to a
stop sign and put it in neutrual and "boom crunch
spatter" scratchmy car said. I shut off the car and
pushed her back the two blocks. Put her up on jacks
and figued out that the clutch fork shattered and it scrap
metal went in my starter gear and my flywheel! Scraped
up everything! I welded up the started and put a new
clutch fork in and went one with my days!

3 days later overheated my car and broke a apex seal!

Current: Motor out and getting rebuilt and polishing
parts up! Took about 4hrs alone to pull motor, well
almost alone besides the assistance with the cherry
picker!

How that for a story?

JP

 

It is the clutch fork. It is broken Physically broken. A new one is arriving tomorrow.

The clutch rod moves fine, i.e. not the master cylinder. (or not that I can tell).

thesaint

 

Garfinkle removes the white plastic bushings in the fork and puts in oillite selflube bushings that last longed . Just an other idea to make things better .

 

longed== longer sorry can not type ,,hehehehe