Alright first things first, thank you for taking the time to view this thread. It really means a lot, as I have been messing with this problem for the last 2 months, and I'm very near selling this car and just cutting my losses.

The car is a '94 EG EX coupe. The previous owner had the car h22 swapped by a professional speed shop. The transmission had serious issues, and was swapped out for a cheapo p2u5 Accord tranny. This transmission was bought from a friend, and in good working condition.

Along with the trans, a new flywheel (8lb Fidanza), and a CC segmented kevlar clutch was installed. Upon bleeding the clutch, engagement was very smooth, but also very close to the floor. After driving for a few miles, the clutch began to have disengagement issues. The shifts were extremely firm, and it was almost impossible to put the car into first or reverse from a standstill.

After continous rebleeds, we assumed the master cylinder was bad (wet around the boot), so a brand new Omni was ordered and installed. After installing, clutch seemed to finally be fantastic. 50 miles or so later, I'm at the same junction again, with disengagement issues. Rebleeds seem to help the problem, but only temporarily.

I noticed that the reservoir to MC hose was leaking, and decided to try replacing that. Figured if it was leaking, it was potentially letting in air too. After replacing with a high pressure fuel hose (all I could find), the problem persisted. I finally swapped out the slave cylinder (which wasn't leaking) , with a known-working slave cylinder, and the problem persisted.

At this point, the only thing I can note that has an affect on how well the clutch works or doesn't work, is the stupid rod that attaches to the pedal...

After playing with the adjustment nut on the MC rod, the pedal gets EXTREMELY firm, and the clutch works fine! After a few disengagements or so, the clutch goes right back to having problems disengaging (and the pedal no longer feels as firm).

The only thing that has not been replaced or swapped out is the s/s line going from slave to master. As far as I can tell, there are no leaks whatsoever from this. There also doesn't appear to be any air in the line from bleed to bleed...

At last, the only blunder that I can report and speak for myself that could potentially, be the major F'in issue that is the cause of all of this madness is....

THE TRANSMISSION WAS INSTALLED WITH A RUSTY INPUT SHAFT.

Just about everyone I have talked to has told me that this wouldn't cause an issue. Other than a faulty clutch disc, or mismatched pressure plate, what could it be?

It really sounds like I'm gonna have to remove the transmission again, and I am not a happy camper about it.

 

One more thing I'd like to report:

There is a very loud squeak coming from the master cylinder. I can confirm that it is indeed coming from the master cylinder because; it made the same squeak when I (dry) hand pumped the master cylinder before installing, and also, I had someone else pump it while I listened around the engine bay.

The sound is NOT coming from the slave/clutch fork/TO bearing area. There is a slight sound coming from that area, but it's not a harsh sound or a squeak. This was testing with the motor not running FYI.

 

One last thing before I shut the F up, is it possible that I was sent the wrong MC? Say, perhaps the rod is not long enough, and not pushing the pump far enough?

The omni is advertised as having a larger (21mm vs 15mm oem) sized pump, and is supposed to shorten the throw of the clutch...

Another odd bit of info, if I play with the adjustment nut (only the one on the MC rod), I can literally move the pedal all the way to the floor giving the pedal about 1/2 inch of throw. Needless to say, this doesn't help the problem. But why is that possible by hand? Shouldn't a healthy hydraulic system provide too much resistance to make such a farce impossible?

Someone shoot me in the face.

 

are u loosing fluid anywhere...does the fluid level go down at all while driving??? i had a stainless line on my car and it did nuthin but leak

 

Why don't you bring the car to a professional before you ditch it? It doesn't sound like something that would be too hard to figure out if the car was right there in front of me.

 

yea so true..if i had the car in front of me i could figure it out

 

Does it sound like Honda would touch this car? It's pretty Frankensteined to say the least.

 

Difficult to say if I'm losing any fluid. The car isn't being driven right now because I fear that starting the car in 1st gear (only way to engage 1st from a standstill most times) is ruining the brand new starter. While test pumping, I don't believe I'm losing any fluid...

I suppose I could just buy a new line for *****. I mean, I've already dumped over 1k into this car in vein, what's another 40?

 

Still wondering if anyone has any experience with a seized input shaft? Can a rusty non-lubricated shaft cause clutch disengagement issues?

 

sounds like either your flywheel or pp is loose.

 

I thought about the PP, but a loose PP would cause the exact opposite symptoms. A loose PP would cause engagement issues, as the PP holds the clutch to the fly. From what I've read, a loose PP will give the same symptoms of an old slipping clutch.

A loose fly would make noise and throw the entire engine off balance.

 

I didn't mean to shoot down the suggestion, and I am very grateful for every single response and view.

 

A rusty, non lubricated shaft could definitely cause engagement issues.

 

Is it possible either the MC or SC has blow-by, an internal leak?

Does pumping clutch make any diff.?

If push rod out of SC is not moving in relation to clutch peddle you either have...
A leak, you would notice the leak or the loss of fluid.
Air in system, bleeding should have solved it.
Blow-by, it is all that is left. 94

 

i have seen a loose flywheel and pp first hand. there were engagement issues, car would only go into gear sometimes. had to turn the car off to get it in gear. the car didn't run really any different cause the rpms were low.

 

I agree. The input shaft being rusty could prevent the disc from backing off the flywheel and that would result with some of the symptoms you're describing. I know it sucks, but I would pull the trans and clean up the input shaft really well and then lube it with some dry graphite lube (like the kind for lock cylinders but find the aerosol type). You don't want a wet, sticky lube like grease because it traps particles and then you could end up right back where you are again. I used to work at my dad's clutch shop and we sprayed the splines of every disc with dry graphite before it went out the door.

Of course while you're in there check the pressure plate and flywheel for any signs of failure or defects. Looks or loose or broken bolts, hot spots on the pp or flywheel where the disc has been dragging, check the fingers on the pressure plate where the throwout bearing engages to see if the throwout bearing isn't fully disengaging, I'd replace the throwout and pilot bearing while you're in there too. Cheap insurance.

Good luck.

 

i would double check all your connections. same thing happened to my dads accord. i replaced the master and then the slave cylinder with no luck i thought about taking the tranny off but after thinking it through there would have been different failure symptoms before the clutch pedal lost pressure. so i just disconnected all of the lines and sealed it with teflon tape just to make sure it wasn't leaking anywhere, now its as good as new.

 

If anything, the PP and flywheel were slightly overtorqued. We went with about 5lbs over the torque spec for the flywheel. For the PP, we didn't use a torque wrench, for fear of breaking the bolts. We just used a 1/4 drive and torqued in like 6 increments until we couldn't tighten anymore with just our thumb and two forefingers.

That's definitely my worst possible fear right there...

A tech friend suggested using a pry bar to pry against the clutch fork, taking the hydro system out of the equation altogether. I also figure this might do the trick in knocking away any rust that could potentially be preventing the disc from moving.

Now keep in mind the clutch as no problem re-engaging. As soon as you let go of that pedal, the clutch bites the flywheel hard enough to snap your neck. It just has issues moving towards the flywheel to disengage. That unfortunately still leaves the hydro system as a possible culprit. ****.

With that in mind, in theory, the rust would be at the very end of the input shaft...

Is there any easy way to detect if the disc defective? Missing springs are obviously a dead giveaway, anything else? Maybe checking the thickness with a micrometer as well. I'm really hoping CC will be somewhat helpful in providing the information I would need.

I will definitely check the part number stickers on both the PP and disc to be sure they're correct. Admittedly, we never checked the numbers as the ones on the sealed box checked out.

In your experience, have you ever dealt with a defective or mismatched clutch kit? How do the clutch companies typically handle such a situation? Do they send you a new kit BEFORE you send the old one back? It just seems that leaving the car apart waiting on a ****ing RMA is kinda unfair. I'm not so sure i'll have a place to just leave my **** for 2-3 weeks.

I would hate to tear this son of a bitch a part, and have the same exact issue as before.

Blow-by would result in fluid in the boot right? That's the only possible place I could imagine the fluid would end up, other than leaking out. It's hard to imagine that the boot hold a ton of fluid before showing an actual leak. But you're 100% right, there has to be a fluid loss somewhere or an internal leak.

It is also hard to imagine that after a change in the MC (new) and SC (known working) I still have a hydraulic issue.

Hmm. You're the first to suggest teflon with brake fluid. How long ago was that repair? Seems like the brake fluid would eat away at it sooner or later.

 

If you tightened the PP bolts by hand, they could be lose.
I use a impact to tighten the PP bolts.
I just know when to stop so they dont break.
And for sure the input shaft needs to be cleaned and lubed.

 

teflon serves its purpose, people use it on everything. the repair was about two weeks ago

 

LOL what???

 

I had blow-by on my master brake cylender, it was 3 weeks before I saw any sign of leakage, it turns out most of the fluid was just blowing back and forth, that's why it took so long for me to notice, brake fluid level never dropped.

It was a friend with a Corvett that suggested I change the MBC, we had pulled all the wheels and where comparing brake caliper movement to brake peddel movement, it was then that he suggested pulling the MBC, it was when I removed it that I noticed the leak, very minor.

If the push rod out of the SC is not moving enough to disengauge the clutch the problem must be in the hydraulics 94

 

Hopefully everything goes well. I just am very skeptical about using teflon tape on anything, especially fuel and brake fluid.

I'm starting to think this might be the culprit. I'm going to measure the clutch arm movement and compare it to a similar trans/motor combo that is actually working.

 

heh so guys guess what? We finally got around to removing the clutch again to inspect it and see whats up. The clutch was not binding on the input shaft, and neither was the throw out bearing. We sat there for almost an hour just inspecting everything, scratching our heads, wondering what could possibly be the problem.

We then decided to compare the new clutch to the one that was in the car previously. FYI this clutch still had PLENTY of life left on it, but was only changed because we were swapping transmissions. It turns out that CC did indeed sent out a mismatched disc with the pressure plate!

The disc is so thick, that it literally sits 1/4" above the pressure plate when sitting inside of it. We reinstalled the old clutch/pp and the car shifts perfectly, and disengages with no issues at all. I ended up dropping almost 200 dollars in parts, just to find out it was the damned clutch all along.

I feel at this point that Competition Clutch owes me a new (correctly matched) clutch kit, and possibly some sort of monetary compensation. I mean after all, if this was taken to a shop, they would have charged me twice. No doubt about that...

Thank you to everyone that contributed to this thread. Does anyone have any advice on where to go from here?

 

I think they owe you the correct clutch but they shouldn't give you any money. You should have compared the old clutch to the new clutch. Didn't you say there was a huge difference?