I'm a new member with a 1992 Honda Civic - The clutch pedal started to feel heavy all of a sudden a week ago, so I just replaced both the master and the slave cylinders. I did the bleed routine at the bleed screw on the slave. Now the clutch again feels very heavy like pressing the brake pedal - It also will NOT go in all the way, stopping at the half point. If I manually move the fork, the pedal will collapse to the floor but becomes hard again after a single clutch press. I checked the play on the fork and it seems fine. If I compress the slave cylinder the fluid level in the reservoir rises with NO bubbles so I think all the air is out of the system.

ANY ONE SEEN THIS PROBLEM BEFORE ?

Thanks in advance!

 

That is unusual. Possibly the frame and pivot for the top of the pedal is broken causing it to get out of line and bind. Another possibility is that the hose is intermittently blocking like can happen with brake hoses.

When the pedal goes only halfway down I assume that the clutch is not disengaged and you can't shift into gear?

 

mk378 : Thanks

The clutch does not disengage. If I start the engine and try to gear up it grinds - so I quickly back off. I was pretty careful when I replaced the two clutch cylinders but I can't say fur sure that there is no crud in the lines from prior use. The gears shift fine when the engine is off. This seems to have happened quite suddenly, and I'm wondering if the problem lies in clutch plate / flywheel area - however I detected no slippage and just smooth driving before this incident.

 

mk378 :

A quick question - I will be changing the oil seals on crank shaft. I was thinking
of also doing the transmission. The seal at the mainshaft (clutch housing) seems
like an ordeal to replace. Just wondering if there is any experience with this issue;
it looks likely that I will leave this one alone for the future - car has 500k+ miles, and
how long do these typically last ?

I have separated and removed the transmission from the engine. The real culprit in
my problem is that the clutch release fork is in extremely bad shape. The pivot point
in the transmission case actually punched into the fork and wore a hole in it. The
fork was also in the process of splitting into two parts in this area - wow ! The
pressure plate and the disc are surprisingly in good shape and are within the
service limits. I do however plan to replace them.

So what was happening is that my first clutch press was pushing the fork against the
clutch housing, where it remained. Subsequent clutch presses simply jammed the fork
into the limit - which is why the clutch pedal became hard to press - the fork was not
retracting !

 

Good you found the clutch problem. The outside input shaft bearing on the transmission is a weak point in the D series and should be replaced after 150k+ miles on it. Taking the transmission apart to get the shafts out and change the end bearings and seals is not too difficult. You don't want or need to take all the gears apart.

 

mk378 : Thanks for the feedback and info on the bearings. I'm looking into it...