My clutch problem.
 

At 30,000 miles my stock clutch gave up. I dropped the transmission and installed a new aftermarket clutch and had the stock flywheel resurfaced. After I put it all back together I have problems shifting into reverse and 1st gear (have to push hard, clunks into gear) from neutral because the clutch is not fully dissengaging. One person who i've asked says my problem is that when I had my flywheel resurfaced that I needed to shim the flywheel replace the material removed. Is this right? I've never heard of anyone shimming their flywheel in their STi after resurfacing. Any other ideas? I don't want to take it all back apart if I don't know what the problem is.

I've never heard of shimming either.

Any chance you've got air in the clutch lines? Try bleeding them?

What transmission fluid did you refill with?

Shockproof Light.
If I put the wrong fluid in, would it effect the clutch engagement? I would understand gear engagement but not clutch dissengagement.

Yes, i've bleed the clutch fluid. Wouldn't air cause a mushy clutch pedal? I don't have a soft pedal.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

You are sure the problem is that the clutch is not disengaging all the way? If you park your car on a level surface and then start the car in 1st gear with the clutch pressed all the way in, would your car want to creep forward?

Like Juice said, hard engagement isn't necessarily due to the clutch. 1st and R are hard to get into in a brand new car... at least that was true of my WRX. If the gearbox is spinning at all, even from idling in neutral, when you go to put it in 1st or R, the synchros will need to do some work, and it can be stiff feeling if the fluid is cold.

As far as air in the lines, I'm not sure what it would feel like since I've never encountered it. Since the pedal is pushing a spring, I'm not sure that you'd be able to really feel air in the lines the way you can in the brakes. I just thought the air might just be enough slack to prevent the clutch from coming all the way disengaged... but you'd think there's enough tolerance with the pedal on the floor that even some air in the lines wouldn't prevent the clutch from coming all the way open. I'm just tossing ideas out there.

The problem IS the clutch not dissengaging completely. On a flat surface, with the car in neutral and shifting to first gear or reverse gear, with the clutch pedal still to the floor, the car will clunk hard into gear and lurch foward or backward depending on if put in 1st or reverse. Why the clutch doesn't dissengage completely after I installed the clutch I don't know. I need to fix it. I'm sure it's destroying my new clutch and my transmission. I'm sorry if I didn't explain my problem clear enough. I don't know why my new clutch is not dissengaging completely like it's supposed to. It's fustrating trying to figure it out. One thing I tried was make another longer rod for my clutch slave cylinder to push the trans fork foward more if in fact the material removed from the fly wheel was causing the problem. The rod I made was about 1/8 of an inch longer than the normal rod. It made no difference. It was a shot in the dark but it was worth a shot.

I would assume that taking material off the flywheel, thus making it thinner, would have the opposite effect. Maybe it's a bad T/O bearing.

I put the new throwout bearing and pilot bearing that came with the spec stage 2 clutch so they were new too but it's possible that the bearings or the clutch itself is bad from the manufacture. I'm no professional mechanic and it is the first time I've ever done a clutch so it's possible I somehow screwed up on installation. I'm sure it's what I get for tackling a job myself.

You do know that Subaru flywheels are not to be resurfaced.

That is a broad and incorrect statement.

That's only true for autos.

...and pirate ships.














ARrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I would highly suggest going back and fully bleeding your clutch system. Having air in the system may be causing a situation where the clutch actuator is not able to extend out fully and disengage the clutch.

To perform the clutch bleed correctly you will need to remove the clutch actuator from the transmission in the engine bay since the bleed nipple sits lower than the highest point. In my car this meant having to remove the starter so I could get access to the clutch actuator. Remove the actuator, hold it in your hand with the bleed nipple at the highest point. Be sure to hold your hand over the end of the actuator that pushes on the clutch fork otherwise it may pop out. When I last did my clutch a few weeks ago you can open the bleed valve and have a friend just pump the clutch pedal up and down with his/her hand to get the fluid moving out. Once a decent amount of fluid has moved though you can follow the typical brake bleeding procedure. close bleeder, tell friend to pump clutch, feel clutch actuator arm press against your hand, once it extends out a little ways, tell friend to hold, open bleeder. Do this once or twice then install actuator back onto the transmission. You can go though one or two more bleed cycles at this point if you want, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. Top off the clutch fluid reservoir and you're done. Be sure to re-install the starter and don't forget the engine ground wire that you removed.

This made quite a difference on my car and moved the clutch engagement point up a bit. I also did the clutch delay valve removal mod at the same time, I would recommend that also if you have the time. Hopefully this helps and it's something simple to try and fix the problem without removing everything again.
Ryan

What is this?

I believe the newer cars ('04+ ?) had a check-valve of sorts in the clutch line so if you side-stepped the pedal, the clutch would still let out somewhat slowly.

It was a half-assed attempt by Subaru to prevent people from destroying transmissions if they hard/power shifted the car rather than upgrading the transmissions to take the power their motors put out.

Scott is right on with his description, although I think it is for 03+ but don't quote me on that. Check valve is in place so that no matter if you dump the clutch or let it out slowly fluid will flow out of the clutch actuator back into the master cylinder at a consistent rate. (flow in disengages the clutch, flow out engages it). I didn't notice a life changing difference, but i feel that it made a positive change and it cleans up the system up quite a bit. It is also recommended by exedy for multi plate clutch systems. Many of the members on the BMW forums i looked at swear that the removal of the check valve is one of the best things they ever did to their cars.

According to the sources I found on NASIOC and IWSTI the big silver piece attached to the bottom of the clutch master cylinder and the "slave cylinder" attached to the clutch actuator are involved. The actual check valve is made up of a few springs and plastic pieces located in the clutch slave cylinder, but the silver piece also has some involvement according to others. I just replaced the silver piece with a plug and removed the clutch slave cylinder all together. If you are interested in doing this mod, there are good step by step instructions on IWSTI.com, search 'clutch delay valve'.
Ryan

Maybe the disc isn't sliding easily on the input shaft and stays up close to the flywheel tending to turn the input shaft while going into gear? Did the disc slide easily on the input shaft when you installed it? Just throwing out another idea...

Thanks guys, I got it fixed. It was a combination of a little air trapped in the system (had to remove the slave cylinder and the starter like ryan said), but mostly large a clutch adjustment moving the rod above the gas pedal close to half an inch. After the clutch was dissengaged my car didn't even want to start because the ECU had learned to deal with the dragging clutch an raised the rpm at startup to compensate. After adjusting the clutch sensor and resetting the ECU it like a new car again. Thanks again guys.

Nice to hear that you got it figured out. How did you know exactly how to adjust the rod above the pedal?

Sweet.

"righty-tighty, lefty-loosy" ?

Well, looking at the clutch movement and finding the adjustment I just adjusted it toward the firewall hence moving the "rod" further into the master cylinder which stiffined the pedal. I drove the car around the block and moved it a little more untill I felt that the clutch was releasing where I wanted it. Is it possible to adjust it too much? One thing I notice is how much extra clutch travel past disengagement point the pedal can move. I was thinking of putting a small bolt or some kind of raised pad there where that tiny rubber pad is to stop the clutch pedal. That way the clutch pedal doesn't have to travel as far. Does that make any sense? Sorry i'm tired.

There's a place that offers a clutch limiter that does exactly what you are talking about. The site doesn't allow direct linking, but look under "Control" and you'll see it.

http://www.ixizconcept.com/index.html

I'm sure you could fab something similar up for less than $28 though.

Direct link :)