I have an 82 with only 57,000 on it.Yes it's one of those old lady cars you hear about. Any way I put in a new cluthc and pressure plate throw out bear and had the flywheel resurfaced. Drove about 600 mile and now it just quits working. No slipping,just acts like it's not in gear when it realy is. No burnt clutch smell. I let it cool down about 4 hours and can drive it about 4 or 5 miles and it does it again. What is there that would let go after it got hot? It's driven me nuts. I'm a parts changer not trouble shooter. Thanks for any and all help.

 

What caused you to decide to put a new clutch in? Just curious if you were having symptoms like this before hand.

 

The old one was slipping from time to time. It was time for a new one. This problem is all new. Talked with a LUK tec today and even he is puzzled. Still hoping someone out there knows what it is. Could it be the trans? Driving me nuts. I want to keep car on the road with the gas prices. Went on a trip to DE with it ,round trip for $20.00 took my F250 diesel on same trip 2 weeks later cost me $87.00 in fuel. SOMEBODY HELP ME......

 

I dunno man. There are really only two possibilities.

1) Something went wrong during the clutch install. Maybe the fingers on the pressure plate were involved in a manufacturing defect and won't hold, maybe they got damaged in shipping. Perhaps the clutch disc itself is in backwards? I would think the clutch hub hitting the flywheel would make some nasty noise though. Maybe the throwout bearing is getting caught on the shaft somehow and now allowing the clutch to disengage...

2) The transmission took a dump. I don't know why it would happen suddenly, but it could just be one of those coincidences. I would think you'd have trouble getting it into gear or there would be some nasty noises. I also can't see it being that it's intermittent, not something you'd likely see with a manual trans.

That's the only thing I can think of. The only way to find out for sure, unfortunately, is to take the transmission back off and inspect the clutch. Sorry about the bad luck. Good luck getting the problem taken care of.

 

Next time it happens pop the hood and make sure that the clutch arm is releasing all the way, could be binding. Did you remove that arm from the tans and lube it good? What about the clutch splines and the surface the throw-out bearing rides on?

 

I checked everything realy good. Now I guess I need to talk with a transmision guy. Buy I don't understand what could go wrong to make it work hit or miss. I still think it's the clutch. Please keep the idea's coming.Thanks