LS1, T56, stock Camaro Slave with 60K miles on it and wilwood master from Flyin Miata with 11K miles on it.

I was out trying to get a good video of 0-100-0 and when I did a full throttle launch the clutch would not disengage. When I got back to 0 even with the clutch pushed in the engine stalled.

I started to limp the car home and with every shift the clutch engage range moved farther up and by the time I shifted to 6th everything was normal. I ran through the gears a couple times with no problem. So I did another hard launch and same thing the engage range was beyond the floor board.

I've driven the car a good 50 miles since then and it works perfect in normal driving conditions. Any idea what is happening or what the fix is?

 

I would start with a good flush of the fluid (meaning master to slave fluid). My first thought is heat, but....(?) (zero expertise...just the first place I'd start shot gunning)

 

air in the line, almost positive.

 

So the theory is the air doesn't compress enough to notice with normal driving and at load it does? Scratching my limited hydraulic head I guess I can see that. No question starting at 70% engine load in 2nd has to put many times more load on the system than a few percent in 1st. Easy enough to flush and bleed so I'll start there.

Thanks!

 

I remember when I put the lines on the slave thinking that seems kind of sloppy and a weird way to connect them but it worked fine in the Camaro so it should be fine here. So I popped the hood during lunch and there is about a teaspoon of fluid in the clutch master and the bottom of the trans is drippy.

 

Good news: you found the problem.

Bad news: time to fix the problem.

 

LOL true enough! If there is any silver lining at all to Minnesota winters it's that the car sits from November to April so time to fix is not a big deal. The job itself is pretty big and not one I am really looking forward to. But I am looking forward to making a better video next spring!

 

The evil jerk is poking his head out..... What is this thing called winter that forces you park your car???? TX FTW

 

LOL that is the stuff nightmares come from!

 

I'll do you one better.

 

I'd also like to point out that, technically, I'm right. Air in the line. :-D

 

Well with only 15K miles on it I couldn't bring myself to buying a new clutch. So I picked up a master cyl kit and new slave and am going to tear into it tonight. I've always enjoyed working on the little bugger but for this I'd rather have a root canal.

Bolting the cross member under the carpet and welding a skid plate to the trans brace and floor seemed like the thing to do at the time but not so much now. Step 1 to remove the transmission - remove the seats.

 

Well why should today be any different? To swap the leaking slave cylinder I spent the last 2 nights laying under the car getting 5 pounds of ditch mud in my eyes wrestling the trans out (note to self next build don't weld in the trans mount) (note to self 2 next time move the drain pan before you dump it over under the car) and as I pull the lines off the slave ... face palm the bleeder was finger tight!
Thus I managed to turn a 10 minute job that would cost nothing into a 10 hour job that cost a race weekend.

 

Jim, I feel your pain! I think I can beat your story in a unintended consequence sorta way. Back in the about 1979 I was going to do a quick tuneup on our 1994 Fiat 124 Spider (just before a big mountain drive). One of the screw holes for the points in the dual point distributor was stripped out so I substituted a slighter bigger screw, (that happened to be a smidgen longer).

All's good, new points, plugs, filters and oil.....go to start and the engine won't turn over. So to start it I push it down the driveway, put in gear and pop the clutch and the motor locked up.

What happened....longer screw in the distributor contacted the centrifugal advance weights just below the point plate, distributor is driven off one of the cams, so.....distributor can't turn.... cam can't turn and it jumps time, pistons hit valves......it goes down-hill from there.

On the woes of unintended consequences!