Clutch dead after a week?

[xyster]

My clutch was slipping really bad in my 92 coupe, so I bought one from advance, and took it to a local shop. They installed it for ~$350, and it ran fine for a week. Today it seemed to go out altogether, revving but moving slow; the same problem I had a week ago before I had it replaced. It also seemed like the engage point on the clutch pedal was gradually moving up, and the pedal was getting stiffer. Last time, I could move through all the gears without touching the clutch, and I smelled it burning. This time, I can't move through the gears without it, and I smell nothing burning. I called the shop, and of course they're going to fix it for free. any ideas, though? I think it might just need a linkage adjustment of some sort. I can't believe the clutch would fail after a week. Thanks

Xyster

[C-Kwik]

I've seen this problem before. The 240sx's clutch master cylinder is a bit different than those I usually see in cars. It uses a valve internally to release line pressure instead of just exposing the orifice between the reservior and the cylinder. If the freeplay and height adjustment are off, it can cause this problem. If you add too much freeplay, the pedal will not want to come back up. Too little and it starts to build pressure as the valve will never be open to release pressure. I had problems gettin the pedal adjustment right, so I finally ended up giving a little extra freeplay and adding a helper spring to bring the pedal back up when released.

[I H8 UR DSM]

yea, and when you do the clutch, you should bleed the slave cylinder, and the master cylinder...some places will only do one or the other, and forget the other one...might want to re bleed the lines....

[xyster]

update:

I took it back to the same shop, they re-bled everything and adjusted the pedal and it works fine now. The mechanic says it looks like the last guy that owned it realized the clutch was going, and tried to tinker with the pedal/linkage adjustment to get some more life out of it, and loosened some stuff up. Thanks for the replies.

xyster

[xyster]

This shop is really pissing me off. The car ran fine for about a day, and now it's screwed up again. It shifts ok, a little on the hard time sometimes, and it seems I have to really hammer the clutch to make it shift easily. Also, whenever I press the clutch, a little drop of black fluid (I assume it's clutch fluid) rolls out of the hole where the linkage goes through the firewall. I guess I gotta take it back tomorrow.

[TrunkMonkey]

Also, whenever I press the clutch, a little drop of black fluid (I assume it's clutch fluid) rolls out of the hole where the linkage goes through the firewall.

your clutch master cylinder went bad.