The suggestion of testing the clutch on a hill is fine, but it shouldn't be done until it has been given enough time to un-glaze itself.

 

Sounds like u might need this (just in case): https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=203289.

 

Hey, Beave- You weren't pulling a boat behind you as you went up that hill were you?

(This is just an inside joke / jab at gernby. )

 

It sounded like he forced it in, You know if your goign at like 15mph and you try to put it in 1st and wont just slip in unless you force it really hard, not good man is what I think. At Least I don't force it in.....

 

Since you weren't sure about being in first, if indeed you tried to start off on a steep hill in 3rd, I'm not surprised by what you have described. Depending on how steep the hill was, you most likely just cooked the clutch for the time being. Give it a chance to see if it comes back. Most people who drive in a manual car and starting off on a hill will generally get a little "worked up", especially when the doofus behind you is right on your ass. One tends to get a bit excited and just want to get going. Even if you were in 1st, you would have still had a tendency to rev the crap out of it to get up the hill as expeditiously as possible. On an incline, you could be increasing the load on that clutch by as much as 50% or even double. Doing it 3rd would increase it by who knows how much.

 

It sounded like he was starting from a standstill on that hill. It should have gone into 1st no problem, but the "stress" of the moment most likely made it such that he was pushing against the barrier between two gates and it slipped into 3rd instead.

As a side note, the only reason that 1st gear is difficult to get into at speed is due to the 1st gear "blocker ring". It is difficult to engage 1st on purpose - so people don't accidentally make the rpm jump up too fast and cause the car to jerk violently when the clutch is re-engaged. This blocker ring "can" be defeated in one of two ways. The generally accepted way is to double clutch rev match. Using this technique, you can engage 1st gear as high as 44 mph BUT this takes a lot of finesse and a bit of "nads" to do since when the shift is done, you will be at redline. The second way to do it is to wear your blocker ring down. This has been witnessed by another owner who can shift into 1st from an alarmingly high speed without double clutching. However, to make the transition smooth, he does still rev match.

 

Just a side note about accellerating from a stop on a hill (especially when pulling a boat)...

Whenever I am on an incline, I will hold the parking brake up (with the button depressed) to keep the car from rolling backwards while I let out the clutch. As the clutch starts to engage, I release the parking brake. This reduces the load on the clutch a great deal (since the car doesn't start rolling backwards), and keeps you from "front ending" the car behind you (or being pulled into the lake by your boat).

 

Gernby, what you just described - isn't this a given? I mean, they even teach this in driving school in cities where there are a lot of hills. This is second nature to me and is the logical thing to do. I just thought everyone does this.

 

Nobody ever taught me to use the parking brake that way. Actually, it is something that I just "learned" when I was pulling my boat! I guess your driver education classes were better than mine. Although, there weren't any hills where I learned to drive. I have also driven quite a few manual shift vehicles (trucks mostly) that had foot operated parking brakes to the left of the clutch.

 

Xviper,

With this blocker ring functioning, how do so many people misshift and bend valves? After I read enough of those threads, I came to the conclusion that the s2k didn't have a gear lockout like that.