I swapped a d16z6 into my 95 dx coupe after the stock motor took a dump. The new engine came out of an auto so we had to swap over the DX tranny/clutch/flywheel from my car. I THOUGHT everything went smooth until I got into the car to start it for the first time.

I pressed the clutch pedal to the floor and noticed it had ZERO resistance and stuck to the floor. Weird I thought, as I never did anything that would have allowed air into the system but none the less I decided to try bleeding the clutch.

At this point, I notice that the arm that sticks out of the transmission that is under the rubber boot that the clutch slave cylinder actually operates (sorry for the uber technical terminology) felt odd. Now I have never felt it before so I don't know how it is supposed to feel, but it has a HUGE amount of slop and has ZERO resistance. It literally feels as though I could rip it right out of the tranny, obviously I cant but that is how it feels initially.

Is this normal???

I am worried that in the process of swapping over the transmission to the new engine I somehow did something that ruined my tranny.

 

Pull the rubber boot off and look at it. That arm just sits on top of a ball - there isn't anything holding it on there, and it falls off very easily. You probably just need to put it back on the ball.

 

Thanks for the quick response! The boot is off. Please bear with me here as I am NOT an expert. Are you saying that the arm that sticks out of the tranny sits on a ball INSIDE the tranny? And that I should simply be able to reposition it on this ball?

Would this (the arm falling off the ball inside the tranny) cause the clutch to not function properly?

 

Yes it does, yes you should, and yes it would. The clutch pedal (and all the hydraulics) work to push the rod one way, separating the clutch from the flywheel. The pressure plate (which is on the other side of that ball) works to push the clutch back onto the flywheel. I'm blatantly over-simplifying it all, but I'm assuming you just want it to work and don't care exactly how it works.



That's the arm I'm talking about behind that boot. It's called a clutch fork. That one's broken.



That's a technical drawing, showing where the small "ball" looking part on the clutch slave cylinder rests on the "socket" of the shift fork. If those two parts aren't touching each other correctly, then you'd have the problem you're having.

 

Thank you VERY much for the help, I appreciate it! Hopefully I can get this fixed tomorrow without much trouble.

 

Thanks again jbpnoman you were right had it fixed in a couple minutes.

 

Glad to hear it it's usually the smallest, simplest thing that causes the worst problems.