Good day all...
I have a bit of a problem with my (relatively new to me) 2005 Toyota Corolla XRS (the one without a clutch return spring on the pedal). The car has around 100k miles. Upon acquiring this vehicle a few months ago, I had no real experience driving a manual transmission. This car/tranny combo (Toyota C60 6-speed manual) has a tendency to get a terribly crunchy 3d gear with age when cold. This crunching, combined with an inherently "jerky" gearbox/clutch combination and increasingly frequent instances of it being really, really difficult to get the car into 1st and Reverse on cold start compelled me to do two things:
1) change the gear oil out with Redline MT-90, and,
2) bleed the clutch hydraulic system at the slave.
The redline, to its credit, seemed to almost completely cure the 3d notchiness (as well as the failure to go into gear at cold start. I encountered a problem, however, when I was bleeding the clutch.
I had only bled brake systems before, and, as a result, panicked a great deal when I encountered the clutch that would go to the floor when pumping with a one man brake bleeder (no return spring on this car). The one man bleeder, however, revealed a problem with the system, in that I would pump out a small bottle of fluid and find that there was brake fluid leakage on my crossmember after I went back under the hood. The bleeder, it seems, seems to leak fluid out of the threads. I completed the bleed with a helper and found that no matter how little I opened the bleeder, brake fluid would always come out of the threads during the bleeder process. I finished the process (using almost a liter of fluid) and found that my clutching and shifting quality had improved noticeably.
Here's the problem: after about 6k miles, the clutch action seems to be softer than it had been before. I understand that I have to start my troubleshooting process with another bleed, but I have a few questions prior:
1) Is this bleeder something that would likely be sold separately? Do you think that a new bleeder would solve this problem, or am I likely stuck replacing the whole slave unit?
2) Is there a generally accepted procedure for bleeding a car that doesn't have a clutch return spring?
3) Could this softness be the result of significant clutch wear? In the past 6k miles, I've driven to a much larger metropolitan city--with concomittant A****** drivers and traffic--and I KNOW I had to have taken some of the clutch's lifespan off trying to compensate for my lack of experience driving manual in trying to keep up with traffic. The car has 100k on it at this point and I'm assuming the original clutch. I only drove in these conditions for about 500 miles, though. The clutch pedal had to be disengaged about 3/4 of the way prior to the trip, and a knowledgeable person said that (at the time) I probably had some meaningful wear on the clutch. My problem with this car (as a 2005 auto reviewer said in 2004) is that the tranny/clutch combo on this car is inherently "jerky" and takes skilled shifting to drive smoothly. My clutch seemed really grabby, and, in combination with a really "jumpy" gas pedal (will go to 2500 RPM at the slightest touch when warm) I have compensated for this by probably spending more time on the clutch than I should. I can, however, drive other manual cars relatively smoothly at this point.
Any advice you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks for reading through all of this, if you did.
I have a bit of a problem with my (relatively new to me) 2005 Toyota Corolla XRS (the one without a clutch return spring on the pedal). The car has around 100k miles. Upon acquiring this vehicle a few months ago, I had no real experience driving a manual transmission. This car/tranny combo (Toyota C60 6-speed manual) has a tendency to get a terribly crunchy 3d gear with age when cold. This crunching, combined with an inherently "jerky" gearbox/clutch combination and increasingly frequent instances of it being really, really difficult to get the car into 1st and Reverse on cold start compelled me to do two things:
1) change the gear oil out with Redline MT-90, and,
2) bleed the clutch hydraulic system at the slave.
The redline, to its credit, seemed to almost completely cure the 3d notchiness (as well as the failure to go into gear at cold start. I encountered a problem, however, when I was bleeding the clutch.
I had only bled brake systems before, and, as a result, panicked a great deal when I encountered the clutch that would go to the floor when pumping with a one man brake bleeder (no return spring on this car). The one man bleeder, however, revealed a problem with the system, in that I would pump out a small bottle of fluid and find that there was brake fluid leakage on my crossmember after I went back under the hood. The bleeder, it seems, seems to leak fluid out of the threads. I completed the bleed with a helper and found that no matter how little I opened the bleeder, brake fluid would always come out of the threads during the bleeder process. I finished the process (using almost a liter of fluid) and found that my clutching and shifting quality had improved noticeably.
Here's the problem: after about 6k miles, the clutch action seems to be softer than it had been before. I understand that I have to start my troubleshooting process with another bleed, but I have a few questions prior:
1) Is this bleeder something that would likely be sold separately? Do you think that a new bleeder would solve this problem, or am I likely stuck replacing the whole slave unit?
2) Is there a generally accepted procedure for bleeding a car that doesn't have a clutch return spring?
3) Could this softness be the result of significant clutch wear? In the past 6k miles, I've driven to a much larger metropolitan city--with concomittant A****** drivers and traffic--and I KNOW I had to have taken some of the clutch's lifespan off trying to compensate for my lack of experience driving manual in trying to keep up with traffic. The car has 100k on it at this point and I'm assuming the original clutch. I only drove in these conditions for about 500 miles, though. The clutch pedal had to be disengaged about 3/4 of the way prior to the trip, and a knowledgeable person said that (at the time) I probably had some meaningful wear on the clutch. My problem with this car (as a 2005 auto reviewer said in 2004) is that the tranny/clutch combo on this car is inherently "jerky" and takes skilled shifting to drive smoothly. My clutch seemed really grabby, and, in combination with a really "jumpy" gas pedal (will go to 2500 RPM at the slightest touch when warm) I have compensated for this by probably spending more time on the clutch than I should. I can, however, drive other manual cars relatively smoothly at this point.
Any advice you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks for reading through all of this, if you did.
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