I've been wrenching now for over 30 years, and I have to say I've never encountered this before. Maybe someone here can clue me in on whats happening. Have a 1989 CRX Si with manual tranny. Clutch started making noise and shifting became difficult then impossible. We tore down the car and removed the bell housing to find a tension spring from the clutch disc had broken out and was jamming the works up. No problem. We installed a new clutch plate, new pressure plate, new throwout bearing, and new fork spring. Put it all back together and tested. Car with motor off - shifts beautifully with clutch in, tranny goes into each gear smoothly. With clutch out can still move throught gears but with resistance. This is all normal. Car with motor running - cannot move shifter into any gear with or without clutch depressed. If we shut motor off and put car into any gear, and push clutch pedal to floor and try to turn the motor over, the car lurches like its in gear. What the heck is going on here??? We've triple checked everything including the clutch cable adjustment, evertything is perfect. Am I missing something like maybe some sort of electric shift lock thats actuated by the clutch pedal???? This is insane, but I need to get this car on the road. Anyone?

 

wow that sounds like a HUGE PITA.

for starters.. you used a clutch disc/pp for a 89 civic/crx si correct?

sounds to me like the clutch isn't disengaging at all (which would be why it lurches w/ the clutch pedal depressed).

maybe your cable snapped? i would re-adjust the cable (and yes, i know you said u did it already, but do it again), possibly use the "lurching" as an indication if it's engaged or not.

 

Yes, the pressure plate had to be returned because the dolt sold us one for the wrong motor type. It did not fit at all which tipped us off. We've adjusted the cable as far as it will go. The bearing fork is traveling its full distance and bottoming out in its hole. Outside of the wrong pressure plate, again, I cannot think of anything. The clutch discs are all the same through the generation of motors and trans for this car.

 

no, the 88's have 1 more.. or less spline on the input shaft, and hense, on the clutch disc. but if u had it, you wouldnt be able to even put the tranny on the motor.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Hondaman56 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> If we shut motor off and put car into any gear, and push clutch pedal to floor and try to turn the motor over, the car lurches like its in gear.</TD></TR></TABLE>

what gears did u try that in? if 1.. try 3rd... different shaft. maybe a broken shift fork?

 

if that fails.. drain the fluid and look for "sparklies"

 

No sparklies. I looked for them early on and even filtered the old oil. If a fork went, there is a big piece inside the case somewhere. We tried in several gears including reverse. I'm figuring if it was a broke fork that it would be stuck in one gear forever. We can do the put it in gear and try to start the car with the clutch pedal depressed test, but if we move the shifter to neutral it will start fine. This I think means, hopefully, no internal problems with the tranny. Forgot about the real early 88 extra spline part, but this went together easily so we're sure we don't have that. I'm thinking the clutch disc may be in backawards. The supplimental shop manual dictates a certain installation orientation while the regular manual does not. My Honda expert buddy says we'd not be able to get the trans on if it was backwards, but I've rebuilt Ford 4 speeds and got the Syncros backwards as they are ever so slightly different and not marked. A 1/16th inch or 1/32nd inch is all it takes to bind this whole thing up. Guess we'll find out this weekend when we tear it down yet again...

 

Problem Solved!!! Well, I spent this morning and the early part of this afternoon tearing down my CRX again to investiage this clutch problem. I found that the clutch disc was too wide by about 1/4 inch. The parts dealer sold me the disc for the later 1989-1990 model which is a slightly larger size. What was happening as a result was the clutch disc was mashed againts the pressure plate housing this making it so that even if the clutch was disengaged, the clutch disc was still being spin by the pressure plate housing it was jambed against. Moral of the story I guess is to double check all new parts against the old one before installation.