andy b

so i'm tensioning my timing belt (yes i borrowed the "official" tool) and am cranking the engine over by hand on the crank. "wow, this is a little bit harder than it was before" i say to myself.
get the car back together and get in to fire her up. i see that the car is in gear. "hmm. yes, this would make it hard to crank over by hand". so i get out and look at the rear tire (it was jacked up on one side, so the passenger side tire was barely touching the ground. also, no LSD) i can see from the dust marks on the tread that the tire was in fact spinning while i cranked it over by hand in gear.
oh well i say as i get in. cross my fingers and fire it up. no probs, runs fine -
until i try to put it in gear. no dice. wont go in to gear. shut er down. try again. goes in to gear. hmm.
basically the moral is the clutch is now not disengaging completely. through the higher gears its fine. from a stop as long as i get it into first while still rolling it basically drives normal (2nd is tough.) if i come to a stop in neutral 1st is impossible so i get it rolling in 2nd then downshift to first.
so i bleed the clutch (2 quarts worth) every way imaginable (vacuum bleeder, pressure bleeder, manual method). still no difference.

this is way longer than i planned but does anyone have any idears? the pedal feels pretty firm, pretty close to how it did before i started this mess, so i think its bled right. is it time for a new master/slave cylinder? or an entire clutch? its fairly strong - i cant really spin the tires much from a stop but after it's rolling it doesnt slip at all.
and how in the heck could i have messed it up by turning it over with a tire rubbing on the ground?

<img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" />