Clutch slipping. Gimme the bad news!

Aug 13, 2004 2 Replies

Hi, all. '91 Miata that had a clutch put in about 30K ago. Yesterday and today clutch seems to be slipping a bit and no power making it to the rear wheels. Tonight it got worse quickly. I put it up on the ramps and lo and behold, there's oil all over the tranny and the tunnel above. No leaks on the driveway but quite a bit spread all over on the underside of the car. It's definitely leaking where the trans bolts to the block. My hope? I assume there's a rear main seal that's leaking and allowing the flywheel to sling oil everywhere including the clutch plate. If that's the case, can I just have the tranny dropped, the seal replaced and just clean up the clutch as long as it's still pretty meaty? My first clutch went 90K and I used a genuine Mazda when I had it replaced. Thoughts? Thanks to all.....



I'm 90% sure it's oil. It's not red, and has the heavier consistency of oil, but then again I can't honestly say I know what color trans fluid is. Red like ATF? Duhhhh....


"Charlie Brandt" wrote

If one has the transmission off, it's not hard to remove clutch/flywheel and replace the rear oil seal on the engine. I recently did this. The seal is several inches in diamater and cost 15 bucks. There's also a seal on the transmission shaft that could be replaced as long as things are apart.

However, it is hard to remove the transmission. Of course, you had the clutch done 30K miles ago, so you know that scenario.

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