Clutch problems :(

[z32loverboy]

alright, i have a 1990 300zx n/a with 134,000 miles on it and i bought it from a buddy of mine and know it'd need a clutch replaced but i thought whatever at the time. well, i bought it in october and the mechanic he was using was putting "handmade" "stage 2" racing clutches in it and i burned out two in two weeks so i took it to a different shop and the clutch that was on it was about half the size i needed. so now i have a new OEM clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, master cylender, slave cylender, lines, throwout bearing and pilot bearing. im 1400 into fixing this crap and heres the problem: whenever my car idles and warms up, the clutch pedal gets real hard to press and the clutch starts catchin at the top of the pedal. i'll have about a half a inch of pedal after it catches. now today i've noticed a grinding sound after i let my clutch pedal out and it goes away after i depress the clutch pedal. please help me :'(

[z32loverboy]

re-bled the slave cylinder and the top bleeder screw into a cup of dot-3 to keep air from gettin in and it seems to be working fine now. (said while crossing fingers and knocking on wood after 4 clutches)

[Ace2cool]

Yeah, bleeding the clutches on these cars is beyond finicky.

[1991mikey300zx]

man im having the same problem... its hard to get mine in and out of gear ive bled it so many times and now my fifth gear ripped out now im lookin for a tt trans.

[z32loverboy]

Alright so my baby's clutch still slipps and we called in a Nissan Engineer to look at it and he looked at it and looked it up in the database and he said he's never heard of anything like this. help? lol

[robomatic12]

Is the master cyl and slave cyl OEM nissan? There is a lot of junk floating around with non-oem auto parts store brands, that sometimes you have to take back a few times before you get one to bleed properly.

[z32loverboy]

yeah, all parts on the clutch are OEM. they replaced litterally EVERYTHING on the clutch system with brand new OEM parts. i wish it was that though. i really do.

[robomatic12]

You could try deleting the upper clutch bleed line, there is now a fitting that Z1 sells to bypass it. It's not needed (it softens the pedal feel or something along those lines) and adds additional headache to bleeding.

[z32loverboy]

The nissan mechanic tried that earlier last week, and it didnt fix it. theyve also tried shielding the clutch line from the exhaust heat because they think that the fluid is being boiled since air is randomly popping up in the lines after it warms up to running temp. and they also tried putting DOT-5 synthetic fluid in it too. neither has helped..

[Ace2cool]

Check all your fittings and connection points. Seems like air is leaking in somewhere. Areas of suspect would be bleed points, master cylinder fittings, and slave cylinder fittings. No leaks?

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Has anyone tried adjusting the clutch pedal?

[robomatic12]

Eugh DOT5... no good to mix with other types of brake fluid. Drain it all out and flush it a few times with DOT 3 or 4.

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Eugh DOT5... no good to mix with other types of brake fluid. Drain it all out and flush it a few times with DOT 3 or 4.

Agreed. 3 and 4 can mix fine, but DOT5 is only for DOT5 systems.

[z32loverboy]

got it fixed in june finally. just a fyi for those replacing clutch lines.. theres a bend in the line and if it gets bent the slightest bit, it will cut off the supply of fluid to the slave cylinder and burn a new clutch out in about a mile/minute. but thank the car gods the machanic covered everything after the first clutch replacement. (sorry, replying took so long because in june i had rotater cuff/shoulder cartilage surgery at age 18)