Hi everyone,

135k miles on my R55, 65k miles on this clutch. On my morning commute, there's a steep hill with a stop sign at the top. The other day we had quite a bit of traffic which led to several repeated on-off clutch repeats. It was moving just enough that you wouldn't engage the brake each time, so you're letting out the clutch, putting it in, letting it out, etc.

After about 3 times of this, there was strange noise that sounded almost like grinding and there was noticeable feedback in the clutch pedal. It repeated as I put the clutch in at the stop sign, and then again when I went to shift from 1st to 2nd. Having had a clutch fork fail at 69k miles a week after purchasing the car, I pulled over thinking the same thing was about to happen again. Once I stopped, I couldn't reproduce the sound, but turned around and went home and swapped cars. After a few more test runs, the noise didn't happen again, so I drove the car another week. Until it happened again, on the same hill, but just in regular starting from a stop. Same thing, made the sound once or twice, and then stopped and didn't happen again for another week.

Yesterday it happened for the first time on a flat road after I got on the freeway. This time it sounded more like a screech as I hit the bottom of the clutch stroke, but no real vibration. Brake fluid level is full. Next was to look at the pedal assembly and hyrdraulics, but I'm wondering if part of the clutch fork has broken off and is moving around and getting caught in there or something. I *really* don't want to get another clutch, and I am shocked that I could need another clutch after so few miles. I have put more than 500k miles on manual transmission cars in my life and never had to replace one even after 200k+ on 2 different cars. So I dont' think I'm abusing the clutch =)

I'd appreciate some guidance on what to check next. I really don't want to get stranded with a broken clutch fork again or pay the cost to replace the damn thing, again. I'm hoping for something simpler like the hydraulics that I can address without dropping the transmission.

thanks!

MJ

 

Can take a different route that avoids the steep hill? Stop and go traffic while going up a steep hill is definitely brutal on clutches.

 

unfortunately not, but the noise also happened on the downhill on ramp again on my way home today, so its not just uphill. Then was totally fine the rest of the time. I looked again to see if there were leaks and found nothing.

The sound almost is like a little metal grinding like if you were cutting a key.

MJ

 

Sounds to me like the clutch release lever is bent (or bending) and contacting the clutch pressure plate cover... Since it seems to be generally OK when not stopping on that hill, its possible that you are subconsciously not pressing the pedal down as hard under different circumstances. My car acted similarly before I had replaced my clutch. As a stop-gap, I added a thicker clutch pedal stopper to prevent me from pushing the lever too much. It helped me in the interim, but the ultimate fix was to replace the release lever.

 

Thanks Nik. As this steadily gets more consistent, I'm getting a few more data points. It does seem to happen within the first few minutes of starting the car. On my way to work, that's this uphill section. Today it happened before the hill, and I was able to record the sound
It is also happening on the way home from work, which is on a downhill. So maybe I'm just pressing the pedal slightly farther to the floor? Why this only seems to happen (so far) in the first few minutes and not the rest of the drive I don't know.

So did you install an adjustmable stop like this https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ecs-part...25851ecs01kt1/ or how did you make the stop taller. I don't really want to do a clutch job right now as the rest works perfectly fine.

As a note to that, why do these levers seem to be so weak? Is there something else in the system I need to look at? Two failed ones in 130k miles (the first I wasn't driving the car, but the 2nd I have been) makes me wonder if something else in the system is messed up.

Thanks!

 

I used this stopper, and used washers that made it slightly thicker than the OEM stopper:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-burger-m.../jbclutch~bum/