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ok, so my 21 year old son is driving the 1997 Prelude. He drives the car hard, but he's not learning to drive stick on the car so I know he is not abusing the clutch. The car has 142K miles on it.

The clutch hydraulics have a slow leak someplace, and the reservoir was allowed to run dry. Refilled/bled the system and all was ok. Car was shifting through all gears perfectly normal.

Then I get a phone call at work yesterday: car is not going into gear, had to be pushed into a parking lot. I go there, get in the car and it shifts and drives fine. I ask him "what happened?" Answer: "I don't know, it just wouldn't go into any gear". Keep in mind he's been driving this car for two years...not a newbie to a 5-speed...

He's trying to tell me that we need to replace the clutch. I think there may be a hydraulic issue. Is there any way the hydraulics could be "intermittent" on this car? Of course he's afraid to drive it now because it's no fun with NY drivers swearing at you while you have to push your car off the road. We need to get to the bottom of this.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
-S

H22a2vtec

At those miles you have to change your slave hidrolic cylender and probably your maser. Does the clutch pedal come back up as soon as you push it in and let it go or does it stay down ????

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Clutch pedal operates normally. Plenty of 'spring' in the return.

Car drives and shifts fine...most of the time. Once in awhile, for no apparent reason, the clutch will not engage and the car cannot be shifted into (any) gear. Come back to the car an hour later and it is fine.

This is what has me stumped.

If you guys think replacing the master and slave is good insurance I'll go down that path. I just hate to throw parts at a problem I don't fully understand.

Thanks,
-S

ThatPreludeGuy

Could be a loose spring in the disc, I'm guessing from time to time it shifts out of place and keeps from being able to engage the clutch then if you try it again its sitting in the disc normally. I'd say its bad hydraulics but once the fluid had leaked to the point where you cant engage it wouldn't come back because either you'd have air in the lines or not enough fluid.

Have you bled the clutch line? Cheap and easy thing to do before diving in too far.

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Yup, bled it correctly (which did help the action of the clutch considerably).

Well, this system isn't all that complex so I suppose with 142K miles on the car replacing the clutch first then the slave/master cylinders (or both) is not a horrible idea.

Like I said, just trying to avoid throwing parts/time at it unless there was a clear root cause. I know that trying to imagine what's going on inside that tranny bell housing is tough.

Thanks,
-S

ThatPreludeGuy

When my OEM clutch went it happened similar to what you're describing, it turned out to be a cracked cage on the OEM disc and eventually it just went all together. It was probably close to two weeks between the symptoms and it finally going.

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Solid

Yes, if you have a leak it can be.

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