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I picked up a slight clutch pedal vibration today while driving at low speed on some bumpy California roads. I first felt a slight tingling sensation in my foot and thought my foot was falling asleep. However after shifting into 1st and reverse I was able to replicate it.
The car has 52k miles and the clutch isn't stiff and doesn't slip, so I dont believe its the clutch plate itself. Some googling suggests its potentially the throwout bearing, pressure plate, or something has gone out of alignment like a bad engine mount. I've got my fingers crossed for the latter but I've seen a few posts with similar symptoms related to a broken pressure plate.
Any advice appreciated. I am taking it over to my indy tomorrow to check it out.
Ps - I had a quick convo with my local dealer service manager. He suggested it might be an issue with the clutch helper spring.
Quick update on this. It ended up being the clutch slave cylinder, which is just a 1hr job.
My Indy explained its common the plastic end cap of the cylinder can get brittle and break, leaving the metal piston to rub on the metal clutch fork, hence the vibration. Unfortunately you can’t just buy a new 2 cent plastic cap so need to swap out a new slave cylinder. It’s not expensive so no biggie.
The only risk risk is if you had this metal on metal rubbing for a while the dimple on the clutch fork can get gnarly which can chew up the new slave cylinder cap causing another failure. In that case you need to replace the clutch fork too, which means dropping the transmission.
He scoped it and clutch fork looked ok, so he will just try to get his finger in to sand it a little before putting the new cylinder in. Mine only broke yesterday so I think it should be fine.
Slave cylinder hanging down with missing end cap
You can see the plastic end cap here
I got to check out this beast while I waited. A 73 with a 4.1 engine.
01-04-2018, 05:47 PM
Tracking down a vibration in the clutch pedal
