Back story: The Aveo saga continues...
As that thread reports, I replaced the clutch components this past March in the old lady's '08 Aveo due to a failed release bearing. All was fine until 3 weeks ago, when she called me from work saying the clutch pedal felt "funny", the car wouldn't turn over, and she had a hard time getting it into gear at the end of the work day.
I got to her and sure enough, the clutch pedal was rock hard. I could retract the slave by hand, but as soon as the pedal was pressed once it locked up again. I rolled the car back into a parking spot and called for a tow.
Fast forward to last Sunday. After almost 3 weeks of sitting dead in my lot (we've been beyond busy for months), I finally had a chance to yank the trans back out. I was expecting to find broken pressure plate springs, a damaged release bearing, SOMETHING. Nope. Everything looked absolutely perfect. So, there I was, scratching my head like an idiot. What on earth would cause my issue? While poking around, I decided to pull back the boot on the slave cylinder (for no particular reason) and noticed that the internal c-clip that acts as a piston stop of sorts was deflected out as if something had been pressing against it. Hmmm...
Then it hit me: the release lever! When the release bearing failed last time, I basically forced my way through the gears to get the thing back to the shop. I believe in doing so, the release lever was hitting it's stop which caused the slave rod to deflect the opposite end of the lever. For reference, this is the part I ended up replacing: Clutch release lever
So here we are: 3.5 weeks down a car, a tow bill, and a $15 part to get her back on the road yet again. Comparing the new lever to the old, I could clearly see the bend. It wasn't much, 10-15 degrees maybe, but it was enough to cause the slave to run out of travel. I didn't bother replacing the slave, if it fails later on it's $30 and 2 bolts to replace. I did replace the c-clip just because I had an assortment and it was easy. The clutch feels much better now, and shifting is slightly improved. I may tweak the shifter alignment, 1st and 2nd gear engagement is just a tad finicky right now, but that's no big deal.
After this little debacle, I'm officially done with this car. If it needs anything other than brakes or oil changes in the next 12 months, it's going to the scrap heap. There's just no point in throwing any more time and money at this thing. Oh, and to top it off, at some point while it was sitting LOCKED in my (well lit) parking lot someone popped the lock and stole the very nice Kenwood double-din touch screen I installed a few months ago. So, whoever you are, thanks and go screw yourself.
As that thread reports, I replaced the clutch components this past March in the old lady's '08 Aveo due to a failed release bearing. All was fine until 3 weeks ago, when she called me from work saying the clutch pedal felt "funny", the car wouldn't turn over, and she had a hard time getting it into gear at the end of the work day.
I got to her and sure enough, the clutch pedal was rock hard. I could retract the slave by hand, but as soon as the pedal was pressed once it locked up again. I rolled the car back into a parking spot and called for a tow.
Fast forward to last Sunday. After almost 3 weeks of sitting dead in my lot (we've been beyond busy for months), I finally had a chance to yank the trans back out. I was expecting to find broken pressure plate springs, a damaged release bearing, SOMETHING. Nope. Everything looked absolutely perfect. So, there I was, scratching my head like an idiot. What on earth would cause my issue? While poking around, I decided to pull back the boot on the slave cylinder (for no particular reason) and noticed that the internal c-clip that acts as a piston stop of sorts was deflected out as if something had been pressing against it. Hmmm...
Then it hit me: the release lever! When the release bearing failed last time, I basically forced my way through the gears to get the thing back to the shop. I believe in doing so, the release lever was hitting it's stop which caused the slave rod to deflect the opposite end of the lever. For reference, this is the part I ended up replacing: Clutch release lever
So here we are: 3.5 weeks down a car, a tow bill, and a $15 part to get her back on the road yet again. Comparing the new lever to the old, I could clearly see the bend. It wasn't much, 10-15 degrees maybe, but it was enough to cause the slave to run out of travel. I didn't bother replacing the slave, if it fails later on it's $30 and 2 bolts to replace. I did replace the c-clip just because I had an assortment and it was easy. The clutch feels much better now, and shifting is slightly improved. I may tweak the shifter alignment, 1st and 2nd gear engagement is just a tad finicky right now, but that's no big deal.
After this little debacle, I'm officially done with this car. If it needs anything other than brakes or oil changes in the next 12 months, it's going to the scrap heap. There's just no point in throwing any more time and money at this thing. Oh, and to top it off, at some point while it was sitting LOCKED in my (well lit) parking lot someone popped the lock and stole the very nice Kenwood double-din touch screen I installed a few months ago. So, whoever you are, thanks and go screw yourself.