Clutch noise

[Leo O'Farrell]

Hi,

Recently my 993 clutch makes two noises when engaging and one releasing. The noises seem to come from or through the pedal and center to rear of car.

This is an intermittent problem, and sometimes is associated with not feeling fully disengaged, even thought the pedal is fully depressed. Unable to move gear shift until pumped again.

The brake/clutch fluid reservoir is full to the max, and hasn't needed to be topped off.

I'd like to get some idea of what this could be? It seems to be getting worse, whatever it is, having gone from a funny pedal feeling when depressing, getting too easy in the last 1/3 of the pedal travel, to the noise and sometimes lack of disengagement.

59,000 miles, no service records of clutch work. When I tried to remove the floorboard to peek in there, it's obvious that service work has occurred in the pedal cluster previously. There's a screw under the throttle pedal that was seemingly inaccessible.

Thanks.

Leo

[kang]

Originally Posted by Leo O'Farrell

Hi,

Recently my 993 clutch makes two noises when engaging and one releasing. The noises seem to come from or through the pedal and center to rear of car.

This is an intermittent problem, and sometimes is associated with not feeling fully disengaged, even thought the pedal is fully depressed. Unable to move gear shift until pumped again.

The brake/clutch fluid reservoir is full to the max, and hasn't needed to be topped off.

I'd like to get some idea of what this could be? It seems to be getting worse, whatever it is, having gone from a funny pedal feeling when depressing, getting too easy in the last 1/3 of the pedal travel, to the noise and sometimes lack of disengagement.

59,000 miles, no service records of clutch work. When I tried to remove the floorboard to peek in there, it's obvious that service work has occurred in the pedal cluster previously. There's a screw under the throttle pedal that was seemingly inaccessible.

Thanks.

Leo

First, some squeaking in the clutch is normal on these cars. Stop the car, open the door (so you can hear), and engage and release the clutch. Some squeaking is normal. You can lube the clutch slave to make the squeak go away, but it will come back.

However, you say you get a feeling of not being fully disengaged. For that, I’d say the first thing to try is to flush the clutch hydraulic circuit. Do the brakes as well, while you’re at it. This needs to be done every year or so.

Here is how to flush the clutch slave: http://p-car.com/diy/slave/
And here is how to do the brake flush: http://p-car.com/diy/flush.html

The second thing to try would be to replace the clutch slave. I’ve had to replace mine twice. They don’t last forever. Replacing them is fairly common. Here is how to replace the clutch slave: http://p-car.com/diy/cscr/

The third thing, and at 59,000 miles it is not unexpected, is to replace the clutch.


Perhaps the service in the pedal cluster was replacing the clutch kinematic lever. This is a good thing. You can read about it here: http://p-car.com/diy/pedal/clutchlever.html

To get at the screw behind the throttle pedal, you need to unscrew the pedal and pull it back. You can see a picture of that here: http://p-car.com/diy/pedal/index.html You can see the throttle pedal pulled back in the fourth picture down from the top. This page says to pull the ball out of the socket (that will make sense when you read the page). I say don’t do that. You might break the socket, or just make it loose, or wear it out. Just unscrew the height adjustment screw, like the note at the bottom says.

[Leo O'Farrell]

Kang,

Wow, that's doable. I thought it might be an engine drop right away. I think it'd be worth going through the listening steps and then most likely replace the clutch slave cylinder.

Thanks for the dyi links. It might also be worth my while to get an estimate for a shop rate. However, my confidence is up after the oil change.

Leo

[kang]

Good luck!

[mjshira]

ditto on clutch slave. stop driving the car until it is changed... it can cause a lot of other problems if you don't change it.