HeelToe

My wife bought a 97 4 door GSR with 68k in April of last year.

Since then it's developed some weird clutch behavior. It currently has 89k.

Initially, the problem manifested itself as the clutch making a weird vibration you could feel in the pdel and creaking noise when you depressed the pedal. The local Acura dealer lubricated the "clutch fork pivot" and the behavior disappeared for a while.

Since then, it's returned. They've re-lubricated the clutch fork pivot to no avail. We've basically ignored the noise/vibration because it mostly doesn't affect the way you drive the car. On very hot and humid days, the pedal feels a bit sticky and likes to bind a little bit, but so far it's not been an issue.

I know for a fact the master cylinder has a very slow leak. Could this be part of the problem?

The dealer, upon the second lubrication which didn't make a difference, said they believed the problem to be the slave cylinder or fork/ball/pivot mechanism. How likely is this?

The problem has continued to develop to the point that the clutch is now engaging over a very short distance of pedal travel. Obviously this makes a smooth start difficult. Could this be a result of failure in the hydraulics, or is this another Integra with a 90k clutch?

I'm planning on swapping out the master and slave cylinders soon. This seems to be the lowest cost route to isolating the problem. I know the master needs to be replaced, the slave is questionable, but if it could be related to the problem with the creaking noise and pedal feel, it seems wise to go ahead and swap it, too.

How hard is this procedure? I have the Helms 96 plus 97 supplement coming. Should these be sufficient to help me do the job? I've had the clutch pedal off before and noticed it would be hard to get at the nuts holding the slave cylinder against the firewall. Are these accessible with something like a wobble extension without taking off the dash?

Supposing I manage to get the cylinders changed out, will a pressure bleed once the system has been drained of fluid and subsequently reassembled be sufficient to get any air out of the line?

Thanks for any help!

-matt

97 GSR/4
97 M3/4
Soon: 92 Miata for track duty

ebelp

The procedure isn't that hard if you follow the manual. With no prior experience, I did the entire job in an hour and a half. Just make sure you have 2 people to bleed the hydraulic system.

ndustryalGSR

It sounds like you're on the right track. You'll definitely want to replace the slave and master at the same time (or at least close to the same time). Following the Helms manual, the job is really not complicated. Truthfully, I found the most difficult part to be the cltuch pedal assembly. You have to sort of stand on your head in the floorboard and make-do with the tight space.

A few things that'll help you out include: some cotter pins (the clutch pedal assemly needs one, and I had to cut the old one off with some wire cutters) -- you can get a pack of them cheap at the parts store; some high-temp. high shock-load grease (to lubricate the plunger tip on the slave cylinder before inserting it into the treanny -- I used some red stuff from the parts store); plenty of extra brake fluid to refill the reservoir (somehow, I went through 1 1/2 bottles).

Good luck with the fix. I've actually done the master cylinder twice and the slave once -- it's not too tough at all.