I have a 91 dx hatch and it has recently become increasingly hard to shift into first gear and reverse.

I would come to a stop at a light then go to shift to first and its like it meets a brick wall. I adjusted the cable and this would solve the problem...for a little while.

It came to be that i would need to tighten the cable a little after every trip. I can no longer adjust the cable anymore as it is as far as it can go. Also i dont meet any resistance on the clutch pedal til im mashing it into the floor and still i can hear the clutch still spinning the lay?shaft. Once I got moving i could shift by double clutching, but I can no longer even get it into first.

Is it the cluch cable itself that is the problem? Or something its connectd to?

Thank you for any help!

 

Did you check the fork? The fork is the piece that actually presses on the pressure plate the disengage the clutch. Also, maybe your pressure plate is going bad. The pressure plate is either going to be made of 3 "finger" things or a a bunch of srips of metal that act like a spring. Either way, i'm pretty sure they put tension on the clutch to disengage it. Now if they had lost thier ability to put tension on the clutch, that would explain why the clutch is not disengaging.

 

Thanks for your reply. So How would I go about checking the fork and the pressure plate, would it be a job for an actual mechanic or can a somewhat mechanically inclined car enthusiest pull this off?

 

If anyone is interested i found my problem. The clutch pedal its self has broken off part of the pedalbracket. So when i push down, the bracket descends a little with the pedal enough so that the clutch does not fully disengage. I dunno if I made actual sense with that, but thats my best description. I might try to take a picture. Now I just gotta find a way to weld the piece back together.

 

does it kind of grind at all when trying to put it into first or reverse?

 

Since the clutch is still spinning the gears at idle speed without disengaging, the syncho wont slow down first gear to shift into it. Likewise, reverse gear, with no syncro, is also spinning at idle speed, so if i tried to shove it into reverse there would be many teeth getting angry.

 

"The clutch pedal its self has broken off part of the pedalbracket. So when i push down, the bracket descends a little with the pedal enough so that the clutch does not fully disengage."

Interesting. I have a similar problem with my '94 ex sedan. At first I heard rattling when the clutch was depreased, so I thought it was a shot throwout bearing. Then, a little later, the clutch pedal got really firm and I had the same problem you did. I couldn't shift into 1st from neutral, so I would have to turn the car off, put it in first, and start the ignition...and immediately start moving since it was in gear. Kinda sketchy. When the car got going I would double clutch to shift.

Thinking it was the throwout bearing, I'm in the process of replacing it (and the clutch since it'll be easy access). I'll check the clutch pedal linkage to make sure it's not broken (like yours), but I don't think it is.

 

"Since the clutch is still spinning the gears at idle speed without disengaging, the syncho wont slow down first gear to shift into it. Likewise, reverse gear, with no syncro, is also spinning at idle speed, so if i tried to shove it into reverse there would be many teeth getting angry."

Don't mean to get all technical on you here but reverse does have a syncro. It operates on the same syncro as first gear. The same way 2nd and 3rd are on the same syncro and 4th and 5th on the same. Just thought you might be interested in that.