Last night we had snow and slippery roads here.... long story short, I slid off the road into a ditch. Luckily didn't hit the fence. Fought my way halfway back up the ditch spinning my tires endlessly. Guy stopped to help tow me out of the ditch with his truck. Then my car wouldn't move forward. I mean, the car reeked of that lovely burn of the clutch... I tried all gears including reverse. Tried slowly letting out the clutch pedal, etc. The clutch wouldn't "catch" or something... gears wouldn't engage... then eventually the car wouldn't even start. Towed it back to my house, then had to jump start it this morning. It started and idled alright, but then again would not move forward... wouldn't go. RPMs and car in gear, tires will not spin... wheels will not move at all. I can rev it up to a million RPM and the tires go nowhere.

Is my clutch toast? From spinning trying to get it out of the ditch? Flywheel gone with it maybe? Transmission jacked up? Or something else? CV axles? Would they BOTH go out at the same time? You would think one might spin while the other doesn't?

My clutch master cylinder is bad and I already have the parts to replace it. But I'm scared my clutch might be toast from all the burning and spinning getting out of the ditch?

What are some ways I can find out what is wrong before I go start throwing new parts at it?

I really appreciate it guys. I need some serious help on this one.

 

Well, first thing to eliminate is the chance of axles, so if you can have the car idling in gear, with the clutch out, look under the car to see if anything is busted off and spinning at the diff or halfshaft.

Next thing would be to do the slave and bleed it, and try again.

But yeah, you may have roasted your clutch.

 

Replaced both master and slave clutch cylinders, bled the system, made sure everything was adjusted correctly.

Jacked up the car with the engine running and the wheels would spin. One faster than the other. When back on the ground though, car will not move.

I can put the car in any gear and let the clutch and gas out and the car will not stall like it technically should, you know? It just acts like it is constantly in neutral.

Car is in the shop right now... got a clutch from the local auto parts store cheapo brand...

 

Post up a picture of your clutch friction disc after, i bet it is scorched to all hell, and also i bet you will need machine work on your flywheel, or even a new flywheel depending on how badly it gets burned.

With any luck you will egt away with some machining.

 

Ya most of the time the friction surface on the pressure plate side burns up first, scoring the pressure plate but leaving the flywheel machinable.

 

You said that you had a bad clutch MC. This could have caused the clutch to engage slightly as you were trying to get out of the ditch, hence frying the clutch. Now the clutch MC is completely out causing the car to remain in neutral. I bet the clutch MC and clutch are the culprit of your problem. BTW, you've said it doesn't move in any gear, but how does the clutch feel when putting it in gear? does it fall to the floor, or lack pressure?

 

i think what you're overlooking is the fact that if the hydraulic system is bad, the car won't go in to gear at all. Definitely sounds like clutch issues.

 

it ended up in a ditch for a reason...

 

Ended up needing a whole new flywheel as well as the clutch package set. I didn't see much point in resurfacing it if a brand new one was only $50. They also said my rear main seal was leaking oil and I figured I might as well with that too because I've been trying to track down oil burning/leaking issues for over a year now and that's one thing I suspected but that's all besides the point now I guess....

Here are some pictures of my old clutch and flywheel, the install, and my cheapo brand new clutch set lol:

 

Didn't see the flywheel in your pics. Your pressure plate was toast though. Not to mention the disc!

 

Yea I forgot to snap a pic of the deceased flywheel. God himself couldn't have probably resurfaced it enough to make it good enough to install instead of just getting a whole new one

 

Its ok it'll buff out no problem.

 

Nice, I blew the entire face off a of a clutch that bad on my old 1980 Volvo, and the other side was only about 1/4 inch of material left clinging to the rivets for dear life lol.

Luckily for me I had known that the clutch was dying for ages, and was actually driving to the shop to do the swap when it gave up the ghost. Had my dad tow my car the mile down Hampden to Santa Fe, to where the shop was at that time, and tossed the new clutch in.

Damn I miss having a lift to use whenever I need it.

 

Fork maybe?

 

do people not read or look at pictures? F-ing Noobs... OP where in CO do you live?

 

Hampden and Santa Fe... good times lol

LOL - I'm in Denver area

 

Oh yeah, my dad worked at a Volvo shop there, until the land got purchased for the shopping center.

Then I worked at a shop just down the next light off Santa Fe for a few years. That job rocked, working on old classic European cars all day, but the boss was a jerk.