rpg51

Yesterday I removed the slave cylinder, pulled out the rubber boots, (on the slave push rod and covering the outer fork end), ground off the good sized nipple that had developed, polished the ball end, cleaned out the outer fork end socket, greased the socket and the ball end of the push rod with Honda high temp grease, and reassembled everything. Before the work my clutch was intermittently stiff and a bit rough. Also, if I pressed the pedal all the way to to floor, it felt like it was sticking slightly when I released the pedal back up. The pedal seems smoother now, maybe a tiny bit lighter, but the stickiness when pressed to the floor and releasing is still present and it is still a bit stiffer than the clutch on my other car. Bummer.

I did not try to grease the fork ends. It was hard to impossible to see what was going on inside the clutch assembly and I was so cramped under the car I decided to skip that part. Now I think that the fork ends probably do need to be greased, and maybe the release bearing itself is sticking. It would be a lot easier to deal with this if it was up on a lift. But, maybe I'll try to take it apart again and give it a try on jack stands. Its awful hard on my 67 year old out of shape body under there.

Edit: I see this old thread https://www.s2ki.com/forums/southern...lutch-1108237/. The upshot is that some of the clutch stickiness and hard pedal may be due to a poorly lubed throwout bearing. This makes total sense to me. Its hard to believe putting a few dots of grease on the clutch fork will last very long, or that it is the root of the problem. Maybe, but I doubt it. My question is whether its possible to lube the throwout bearing, or maybe at least the splines that it rides on, without pulling the transmission. Anyone know the answer?

Edit: I lubed the clutch fork tips today. It was a struggle to see the tips well. The upper one was pretty clear. The lower one was a bit of a guess. But, it does seem to have made a significant difference on the test drive. We shall see. It the clutch continues to work like it did on the test drive I'll be happy. If it acts up again, which I honestly predict it will, I'll be driving down to Billman's shop to pull the transmission off and see what is going.

lmaonnaise

Just wondering if multipurpose grease will get the job done here.

I used multipurpose grease which certainly helped a lot, but it doesn’t seem perfect yet. I noticed most are recommending the Honda high temp urea grease? Does this have higher levels of lubricity?

simons2k

Found my weekend project!

windhund116

Are you gonna change the clutch disc?

baldspot_lol

So i did the second part (clutch fork pivot and fingers) of this DIY today, after doing the first half (ball and socket)and being disappointed a while back.

WOW what a difference, clutch is butter smooth and (seems to me at least at least) much lighter! and the squeakiness / roughness has gone.
If you're reading this, definately take the extra time to do the fork pivot and fingers (contact points) for me it made all the diference.

LPT: use a q-tip or cocktail stick or similar to try and grease the fingers, its quite a ways up in there, out of fingers reach for me. i used my phone camera with the light on, look at the screen to get a view inside of what you're doing.

sebo

I just want to make sure that I am not missing something. I am about replace my Slave Clutch Cylinder with the new OEM Honda Slave Clutch Cylinder. With the new Cylinder do I need to also grease the inner rod as is done here by removing rubber boot and the cylinder? Please let me know.

Swang

so i have a smooth clutch but it does squeak when you repeatedly go at it. hard to tell if it squeaks with the engine on since its so quiet compared to the sound of an engine. i did pretty much everything like polished off the nipple, regreased the fork, and regreased the slave cylinder...but the squeak is still there. i saw billman mentioned that the inside friction surface of the TO bearing could be dry and also need regreasing. has anyone done this before?

looking at it, it seems like ill need to drop the transmission

Car Analogy

Typically, when you go through all the effort to drop trans, you replace the whole clutch, since its so much effort to do it.

Its that big a deal.

Try removing pedal and grease the pivot.

Or just learn to live with it until its actually time to replace clutch.

Swang

yeah, fair enough! honestly i never noticed it or cared until a friend pointed it out lol. i always thought it was the nature of having a car thats 18 years old

windhund116

You get the clutch disc and pressure plate replaced with OEM parts. Make sure that the flywheel is true. New throw-out bearing. All the grease points treated with proper stuff...

You won't believe how smooth and effortless the clutch action is!