On the way to work last week, sitting at a light, car in neutral. Right foot on brake, left toes resting on clutch pedal.

With just the pressure of my foot resting on clutch, clutch pedal starts dropping to the floor and ends up there like the clutch is fully depressed. I reach down and pull it back up, pump it a couple times and everything is fine. Hmmm....

An hour later I am looking at some property. Back up [clutch works fine], go to put the car in 1st gear, feel resistance when depressing clutch and then BAM!

Clutch goes limp. I get out look on the ground and see pentosin. I figure either a hard line or a clutch hose and I am too busy to do it myself so I have if flatbedded to the dealership.

Yep. Clutch hose and valve/fitting. Replaced.

Dealership calls and says..."problem..clutch is stuck up top. must be slave/accumulator." I said fix it.

Couple days later I get a call from them and they say..."you gotta BIG problem. We replaced slave/accumulator and clutch still stuck. Removed slave and looked in w/ mirror and EARS OF THROW OUT BEARING ARE BROKEN."

I have no idea how I could blow a clutch hose and break the bearing. I spoke with Kevin and Todd and both said either fork torqued from debris, needle bearings, etc.

Now I am stuck as I usually work on the car and the dealership has it. They go by the "book" so it means drop tranny, drop motor, etc to get to the TO bearing.

Slave, accumulator, clutch and lwfw are 7 months old....so at least I'll get a refund on the $550 for the slave/accumulator...not much compared to what this bill will be...and I still don't know "what happened."

What part did the pedal going to the floor play in this? How in the heck could I break a hose AND the TO bearing....

I'll post the outcome. Welcome to my world.

Hey.....at least I've got a new Evo X to drive around!

 

C'mon guys...PLEASE HELP!!! I know there some very smart Pcar guys out there who can figure out what the heck caused this chain of events. I'm hoping somebody will chime in and throw out a theory on it.

Synopsis for those who don't want to read the whole boring thing:

Clutch pedal went to floor at stop light. Pulled it back up, pumped it. Worked fine

One hour later I back up, go to fisrt gear and clutch goes BAM. Pentosin on ground.

Clutch hos came loose. Fixed.

after bled, clutch stuck up top. Will not go down.

Replace slave/accumulator

after bleeding, clutch still won't go down.

Look inside w/ mirror and slave taken down and find tabs on release bearing are broken off.

I'm lost and hoping for guidance!!! This is gonna run me probably $6,000 when all said and done

Thanks in advance.

 

Good question... I have no answers, but I'm also experiencing something "odd"... When I was at the track last weekend the pedal would be harder to push in under acceleration (changing to the higher gear) sporadically, and would be easy consistantly to push in under braking/deceleration...

Wonder if the "clutchmasters" fulcrom mod is putting to much pressure on the fork on the bearing, and causing it to bind?
Mike

 

Sorry, bro. I really wish I had a hypothesis for you...but this is a confusing one. I just can't imagine how you could get so much pressure that it overextended the bearing and broke it like that.

Very strange.

 

Get rid of the accumulator- thats probably the issue.... convert it to GT2 master and slave.... all manual so you cannot have problems....
I have the Evoms brand new GT2 bracket etc for the slave that I wil not be using since I went with a different set up all together...
markski

 

$manager - the same thing happened to me last year - the tabs on the release bearing broke.

i took it to sharkwerks - it definitely didn't cost $6k to fix it. but i did the clutch assist delete at the time and so forth - probably ran me $3k total (or so) - i'm pretty sure they had to drop the tranny.

edit: our theory was that my clutch at the time chattered so much (sachs stage 3 w/ lwfw) that is just vibrated for 6 months and broke the tabs.

- chuck

 

Chuck-
Thankfully for you Sharky is not a dealer. Unfortunately for me mine is at one and the "book" says to drop motor to do clutch.

Mechanic said he found nothing else wrong at all other than the ears being broken. I have the same clutch and flywheel as you do...... I hope your theory is wrong...wandering if I should put the dual mass back in to prevent your theory from happening again.

It makes sense i.e. rattling around....is the bearing forged or cast? [I can't remember] Wasn't that the stock bearing for the 964 rs? I have the little box mine came in...Sachs.
Tom.

 

$manager - i got rid of the flywheel i had (forget what it was.) i now have the 964 flywheel (i think) and the car has 100% better driveability - easy as pie now - only chattering is backing up. it also helped that i did the clutch assist delete.

you can PM sharky on my exact clutch/lwfw set-up - highest recommendation.

- chuck

 

Update...
I went by the dealership yesterday to drop off a new release bearing, bolts and tube [and yes, the entire motor is out of the car]... and the ONLY thing that looks bad is the release bearing.

Chuck....I dunno...maybe a bad batch of bearings? The piece is cast not forged. What a *****.