OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

I'm having clutch problems and I need some help figuring out what direction to go. I've got a 2000 Z28 camaro with a 6 speed transmission. It has 181K miles. It's never had the transmission dropped. I've had to replace the master cylinder twice in the past 100K miles. The clutch & slave cylinder are stock and have never been replaced.

The problem I'm having is intermittently my car will have problems going into gear. It only happens every once in awhile. Sometimes it will happen when the car is cold & sometimes it will happen when it's hot. When this happens, it's really difficult to get into reverse & I have to really push it to go into gear. It also seems like the clutch struggles slightly to disengage when I press the clutch while driving. I believe the clutch may be dragging.

Most of my miles are easy commute miles. I've never experienced clutch slippage. My clutch reservoir is clean and full. My problem doesn't seem to be transmission related because I have difficulty going into all gears.

Does it sound like my clutch is finally going out or is my slave cylinder bad? Any help is greatly appreciated.

SNLPerformance

iTrader: (15)

Sounds like a hydraulic issue since it's intermittent, which I'd lean towards the master as the slave generally leaks when it fails. Have you tried disconnecting the master and slave to see if you can slowly push clutch pedal down or is it rock hard? What were the symptoms when you replaced the master cylinder the first two times?

BALLSS

so you are saying the "original" clutch is in with 181k miles on it?

if so...stellar wear but at that mileage it has to be well worn

jack up your rear end (on jack stands) start motor, put in gear with clutch pressed all the way in.

do the rear tires move?

OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

I bought the car with 63K miles and the master cylinder went out a week later. I replaced it and then it went out again at about 160K miles. I should've spent the money and bought a Tick adjustable MC the first time.

Both times my master cylinder failed, my clutch pedal started sticking to the floor & I would have to pull it up with my foot. You could tell the master cylinder was leaking down.

I'm not having any problems this time with the pedal sticking. My master cylinder seems to be operating normally. But I guess I probably shouldn't rule it out even though it's giving me different symptoms.

I haven't tried troubleshooting anything yet. I hate bleeding clutch systems after working on them. So I typically take my car into the shop whenever I have clutch / clutch hydraulic problems. I'll probably go ahead and do that in the next week or so. I would just like to get an idea of what I'm looking at before I put it in.

OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

It has worn really well. I figured it would go out long before now. The majority of the last 120K miles have been easy commute highway miles though.

I haven't noticed the master cylinder bleeding down and the car wanting to crawl forward from an idle when the car is in gear. Sometimes it just seems to hang up when I pull it out of gear to shift to another gear. I'm not sure what the deal is.

chrysler kid

iTrader: (14)

Change that transmission fluid and report back to us

SNLPerformance

iTrader: (15)

I recommend bleeding it to see if that helps as I'm sure with that many miles the fluid is contaminated with clutch dust, it could have been that when you changed the master cylinder you the fluid was either freshened from bleeding or it was diluted. Regardless, how does the fluid look in the clutch reservoir currently? As the dust particles aren't good for the seals and can cause issues.

OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

The first thing I did when I started having these problems was change the transmission fluid. The fluid I drained out was fairly clean & the transmission was full. There were no indication of problems with the tranny fluid.

The second thing I did was change my clutch fluid. It really wasn't that dirty. I change my clutch fluid every 10K miles or so because these cars seem to get so much clutch dust in the fluid and contaminate it. I checked it yesterday and it looked clear with a light tint, like brake fluid should. My reservoir was still full.

When I changed my transmission fluid, there was a little bit of mystery fluid on the transmission next to the bellhousing. I checked all of my fluids and none of them were low, so I just blew it off and figured it must've been grime from driving. I'm starting to wonder if my slave cylinder wasn't leaking slightly and it just hadn't leaked enough to see a drop in fluid level in my clutch reservoir. I don't know. This whole thing kind of has me baffled.

I really appreciate the help guys.

02BlkZ28

I would put a new clutch in anyways. Thats alot of miles. But also you should try the drill mod on the hydraulic line. Im not sure the exact drill bit size ill have to try & find it. But i had to do it on my twin disc clutch setup to get it to work. I was having trouble with my brand new clutch not going onto gear. Ordered a different clutch setup & the instructions came with the drill mod procedure. Fixed my problem.

OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and replace the full clutch assembly, slave cylinder, & master cylinder. It won't be cheap, but it should solve the problem.

I had my wife call today to make an appointment to get my car in. He asked me to bring it in so that he could look at it before ordering the parts.

My mechanic mentioned to my wife that it may be a problem with my transmission's synchronizers. I always thought that when a synchronizer went bad that you would have problems with grinding going into the gear with the bad synchro. I didn't think that a bad synchro could give me problems like I'm experiencing with all gears at once.

Does this sound like a bad synchronizer to anyone else?

bfd811

Your correct. Almost all the time you have problems like this with more than 1 its not a problem with a synchro. Usually when you've got a problem with more than 1 gear its a clutch/hydraulic problem.

OSU Football Fan

iTrader: (23)

It turned out to be just a bad throwout bearing. Now after replacing the throwout bearing & slave cylinder, I'm back on the road shifting smoothly. My stock clutch lives on past 182K miles.

Thanks to everyone for their help.