A buddy of mine ran into a problem with the hydraulic portion of his clutch on an Eagle Talon. The details are below. In short, the clutch pedal master cylinder was replaced. After which he started having problems with the clutch slipping. As he points out, it seems to be after the system temperature rises. As an air bubble in the hydraulic line would expand more with heating, we are think an improperly bled hydraulic circuit. However, the shop that replaced the master cylinder says it is "crank creep".
As soon as the weather warms a little, he is going to try bleeding the clutch circuit. In the mean time, any ideas?
Thanks!
Don
My car is an Eagle Talon, 95, Turbo, All Wheel Drive, 103k miles. The diagnosis was crank creep. The tell-tale sign to the mechanic was when pushing in the clutch there was a metal-on-metal rattling sound, when releasing the clutch the sound stopped.
The story is as follows: The clutch had play in it that I asked them to remove, which they did by adjusting something. It seemed to work, but on longer drives the clutch would gradually start slipping more and more until it could be in gear, clutch released and not go anywhere. This is more related to temperature than distance or clutch usage. Releasing fluid out of the slave cylinder with the bleeding valve allowed the car to move again. Given these symptoms the mechanic thought there was grease on the clutch plates and/or that the clutch was shot. It wasn't until hearing the rattling sound after pushing in the clutch that he concluded it was crank creep. I told him to undo the adjustment he did earlier, so I could get rid of the clutch slip, and that was the end of the visit. I have not had any slipping since then, nor do I hear the rattling sound when pushing the clutch.
They did say Mitsubishi had some sort of a shim solution to the crank creep problem, but the mechanic said he wouldn't recommend, or perform, that repair since it was not a quality solution. The only other solution was to replace the engine, and might as well do the clutch also, which would be around the $5000 range.
I've had the car since late '96, about 26k miles, I have not had the clutch worked on. My theory: The clutch line has air that, as it heats with the engine, is causing the line to "expand", causing the slave cylinder to disengage the clutch. The rattling was the clutch being disengaged so far that it was rubbing against a cover plate or something else. When un-adjusting the clutch, the air does not expand enough to cause it to disengage, therefore no slip. Now the clutch does not disengage as far, therefore no rattling. My plan is to bleed the line with some fluid I have left, then adjust the pedal to my liking.