smith88

I was out driving last night. I was in 2nd gear rounding a sharp corner. When I pushed the clutch in to shift into 3rd while coming out of the corner, I heard a clunk. Then my clutch stayed on the floor, and it was extremely hard to put the car in gear.
I ended up driving home in 2nd gear.
After I turned off the car, the clutch got pressure back and was acting normal. It was still hard to go into gears with the car off.
I started it back up, and it would grind when I tried any gear.

Has the clutch gone bad, or is something wrong with my tranny?

Will an n/a clutch fit on a turbo II if that is the problem?

TIA

Turbonut

iTrader: (1)

Check hydraulics. Check freeplay. If normal/ minimal, hold pedal to floor for @ minute. Let off and check freeplay again. If play increases bad cylinder.

MaxRX7

I agree with Turbonut, check the master and slave clutch cylinders first.

The clutch and tranny shouldn't be the problem.
The N/A and Turbo clutches are not interchangable.

smith88

I thought it was time to replace the clutch anyway. 110K miles on the car.

The clutch was pretty worn. The only thing I saw that might be wrong was one of the springs was loose and fell out when I took out the clutch. Is this normal?

Turbonut

iTrader: (1)

Clutch spring shouldn't just fall out. They are loose in there, but retained. I have seen non hydraulic clutch pedals (twice) get "sucked" down to the floor on very high rpm's. After cooling it was fine. Replacing the clutch at that mileage didn't hurt, but do check your hydraulics out.

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

One common problem is the clutch delaminating or a spring breaking loose from the pressure plate - the excess material takes up the extra space when the pressure plate is disengaged, and you can't disengage the clutch. Fairly common problem, especially with el cheapo clutches.

A bad master cylinder usually manifests itself as the pedal going to the floor, but you can build pressure up by pumping it. Driving in town is usually OK, but when you don't press down on the pedal for a while, it goes to the floor and stays there. This is an internal leak in the master cylinder. Buy a NEW one - don't bother rebuilding, it doesn't work.

The other common problem on clutch hydraulics is the rubber hydraulic line going to the slave cylinder tearing and leaking. This is an obvious external fluid leak.

And, no, you can't use an NA clutch on a turbo .

Dale

smith88

I did end up replacing the clutch with a clutch kit from Autozone. I also used the pilot bearing puller from them, and it worked fine. I did mess up the bearing the first time I tried to put it in, so I had to order one from the Mazda dealers. That postponed everything for a week.
I haven't driven it yet, except while on the jack stands where I had 1st-5th gears.

THX for the help