sterkrazzy
Autocross Champion
- Location
- United States
- Car(s)
- Turbo. Blue.
Story time...Alright, so all of this started about 3 weeks. I was backing out of my driveway, put it in first, started letting the clutch out, and I felt something weird happen with the clutch. I went to shift into 2nd and the clutch was just really soft and spongy. I took it for a drive around the block. Parked the car for 10 minutes or so, started it up again, and the clutch was normal. About a week later it happened again when I was starting the car. Since then it's been happening fairly regularly. A lot of the time when the clutch goes soft it happens as I'm starting the car. I'll have the clutch pedal about half way out and as I'm releasing it you can feel something in the pedal and then you can tell it went soft. Once it goes soft I don't believe it has ever gone back to normal while the car was running. Any time it's returned back to it's normal pressure it has been while the car was off or while I was starting it. It has gone soft while driving, but it's not as common as it going soft at start up. The clutch never sticks to the floor. It always comes back up, it's just slower and doesn't have as much pressure.
Yesterday I had the bleeder valve delay removed and we bled the clutch. It was fine for my first couple start ups and drives, but later that day it went soft again.
I was talking to a different mechanic today and he was suggesting it could be the pressure plate, and something with the teeth on the pressure plate being screwed up, or could just be the slave cylinder. With how often this happens at start ups he thinks it's more the pressure plate than the slave cylinder though, and that shutting my car off is resetting the parts into the correct position...something that to extent, he was a lot more technical about it.
I'm tuned on the stock clutch right now, and I know how weak these pressure plates already are, so I'm not against that theory at all. I haven't noticed any slipping except for all the slipping I do trying to take off from a stop with the weak pressure. It takes a while to grab, but once it's grabbed it seems to be fine.
I've tried doing some searching, but I can't find anybody except 1 guy on a volvo forum that had similar problems. He replaced the master cylinder, slave cylinder, the clutch, and still had problems. Then people were telling him to replace the clutch line and do a full system flush, sounds like he did that and he never went back to the forum to complain so I assume it fixed it.
I'm just not sure what my plan of action should be. I've got a new clutch sitting at home with a pressure plate and slave cylinder already, so putting in a new clutch isn't a huge deal. As I said I'm tuned so the clutch needs to go in anyway, but I'd hate to put the new clutch in and then continue to have this issue while trying to break in a new clutch. I feel like I'll roast it before it even gets broken in.
Yesterday I had the bleeder valve delay removed and we bled the clutch. It was fine for my first couple start ups and drives, but later that day it went soft again.
I was talking to a different mechanic today and he was suggesting it could be the pressure plate, and something with the teeth on the pressure plate being screwed up, or could just be the slave cylinder. With how often this happens at start ups he thinks it's more the pressure plate than the slave cylinder though, and that shutting my car off is resetting the parts into the correct position...something that to extent, he was a lot more technical about it.
I'm tuned on the stock clutch right now, and I know how weak these pressure plates already are, so I'm not against that theory at all. I haven't noticed any slipping except for all the slipping I do trying to take off from a stop with the weak pressure. It takes a while to grab, but once it's grabbed it seems to be fine.
I've tried doing some searching, but I can't find anybody except 1 guy on a volvo forum that had similar problems. He replaced the master cylinder, slave cylinder, the clutch, and still had problems. Then people were telling him to replace the clutch line and do a full system flush, sounds like he did that and he never went back to the forum to complain so I assume it fixed it.
I'm just not sure what my plan of action should be. I've got a new clutch sitting at home with a pressure plate and slave cylinder already, so putting in a new clutch isn't a huge deal. As I said I'm tuned so the clutch needs to go in anyway, but I'd hate to put the new clutch in and then continue to have this issue while trying to break in a new clutch. I feel like I'll roast it before it even gets broken in.