Here's the story: I drive my car last night and everything seems fine. When I try to drive it in the morning, I notice that there's an unusual amount of play in the clutch (almost 4 inches of play). Also, the damn thing won't go into gear. Well after playing with it for a few minutes, it finally goes into 1st gear. I drive about a mile down the road to the first stop sign, and I can't get it into gear again...f*ck!! Fortunately, the stop sign was on a hill, so I was able to let my car roll into the nearest parking lot. I get out and look under my dash at my clutch pedal and notice that there is fluid coming from the spot where this little black rod (excuse my terminology) goes through the firewall. Something is leaking. So I pop my hood and inspect. There's a "mini" brake fluid reservoir that is low in fluid, I'm assuming that had something to do with my clutch because it smelled like the same liquid. So I go to the store and buy brake fluid and fill up the reservoir. Still nothing. I finally somehow get my car into gear again and drive my car home and here I am.

Did that little reservoir with the brake fluid in it have anything to do with my clutch?! If not, what is that fluid that I see coming out from behind my clutch pedal? Does my clutch just need to be adjusted? My clutch has 100K miles on it...is it deceased??


[Modified by ebelp, 2:31 PM 3/6/2002]

 

Oh, another thing...the clutch doesn't seem so disengage correctly. There were a couple of times where I actually had to pull the pedal back up with my foot. Sometimes it springs back, sometimes it takes it a few seconds...dammit..

 

Its your clutch cylinder. It just went out.

 

It sounds like your clutch master cylinder is going bad. The small reservoir you talk about is the clutch fluid and is connected to the top of the clutch MC. The "little black rod" connects to the clutch MC to depress the clutch.

The reason you saw fluid leaking is probably because the seals on the clutch MC went bad.

 

Sounds like: time for a new clutch man...sorry to say
may be repair able...but if it has that much wrong with it I would say go ahead and get the thing replaced
my.02

 

Okay, I just did some researching throught the archived files, and it seems like people are saying that I may need to bleed my system, or that the master or slave cylinders have gone out (I have no clue what those are). How hard is it to bleed the system? What do I do if one of the cylinders went out? Where are they located? Need more info!!!

 

Is there a difference between the clutch master cylinder and the master cylinder that controls the brakes?


[Modified by ebelp, 3:23 PM 3/6/2002]

 

yeah, there is a diffrence each one controls two diffrent types of hydrolic actuators. Having the clutch master cylinder go out is a common problem with hondas, expect to spend aroung $300-$400 on the repair. Or whip out your helm's and make a weekend out of it.

HTH

Rich.