On my '85 Honda Accord LX I have been having problems with the car having a bad vibration when trying to take off from a dead stop unless I really rev it up and slip the clutch or dump it. The car had a new clutch installed before it was given to me and only has a few thousand miles on it. I guess the flywheel was never re-surfaced when the clutch was put in so that is what is causing my problems.

Is there anything I can do short of putting in a new clutch and flywheel that will correct this problem? I've heard that doing some high-rpm clutch dumps will help this out, is this true? I'd rather not dump a lot of money into a new clutch or flywheel since I got the car for free.

 

It sounds like clutch chatter, mine had it as well until I installed a new clutch and resurfaced the flywheel.

I don't think a couple big drops will really help, but maybe someone else knows something about that. What I can recommend though is taking off the flywheel access cover (on the bottom of the engine, near one end of the oil pan) and look for oil. If there's oil in that area, the rear main seal could be leaking and causing clutch chatter.

Unless that high RPM stuff works out, the only solution is to replace a leaking rear main seal or taking off the flywheel and getting it resurfaced. If you're sure the flywheel was not resurfaced, beat the person who got the repair done. The ridges in my flywheel were disgusting, I could feel them with my finger alone.