basically i got the clutch back in and it started up fine.. clutch felt nice and engaged well. I started to back out of the driveway and POP! now it feels like it felt when it went out. pedal pressure is fine. master and slave cylinders appear to be fine. plenty of fluid. cv joints are all good. someone at the meet last night said sometimes a spring or bearing will break and thats the pop. any thoughts?

 

Sux buddy! Just finished doing the job too! Could it have to do with the clutch pedal travel adjustment? It could be that the throwout bearing broke but why? I presume you changed the throwout bearing since I presume you bought a kit.

I suspect something is up with the clutch fork or throwout bearing.

 

We changed the throw out. The pilot. The clutch and the P plate.

 

This is a guess and only a guess. I have replaced many clutches but never one on a FIT.

Since it popped and failed I am assuming that your failure is something mechanical. I can not imagine that pop was either the pressure plate fingers or the throwout bearing. I'm guessing it is the forked arm that pushes on the throwout bearing.

The slave cylinder pushes on the arm and the arm pivots on a point in the bell housing. I am guessing that the arm slipped off of that rotation point. There is also a little retainer spring on the arm at that point. That spring is suppose to keep the arm in place. I'm guessing that that spring is missing or the arm was not installed correctly.

You probably can get to the arm and put it and the spring back where it belongs without removing the transmission and clutch again.

Again, I have never replaced a FIT clutch before so I am going by my experience on other vehicles with this guess and repair.

 

So in order to do that I would remove the slave and the boot that wedged between the arm and slave and then take the black boot off the exposed part of the fork? How how can i get to that spring without removing the trans? Also it is possible I guess that it fell off the pivot point. But on initial review (right when it happened) the clutch still engaged he master that engages the fork. I'll go take a look in like an hour and report back!

 

UPDATE!
okay so in the AM I'm gonna give this a go but i went outside to look under the car and the axle popped out of the transmission which makes me think it was never properly seated and if that is the case mystery solved!

 

So check it out and if the fork appears to be pivoting correctly, then my guess was wrong.

 

Great.

Is anything damaged?

How much of a job will it be to replace it?

 

Well I guess that is some good and bad news! Hopefully the axle wasn't damaged. I don't think there is anyway you could have reseated the clutch fork without opening the clutch housing (I.e. Removing the transmission). N9CV had a good guess; I thought the same thing except I didn't think that the little dinky retainer clip for the fork would make a loud pop if it became unseated, so I didn't mention it.

Let us know if you got the axle back in. I guess you lost some transmission fluid in the process so don't forget to top it off!

 

so in order to get the axle back in this is what we did. First take off the wheel. Then break free the spindle nut. Then the lower ball joint and control arm. then the pinch bolts (you basically have to take off the whole knuckle to get GOOD access. I'm sure you could get around this whole process but it just makes it way easier then trying to mcguyver it in.) Then make sure the C clip is nicely seated and just line the axle straight with it already started a bit on the splines and STRAIT away give it a nice shove. Not too hard but you need to give it a push and you'll hear it click in. then reassemble the knuckle. Everything back up to torque specs. I replaced the spindle nut cuz I've had it off a few times but if you've never removed it you can reuse it till it starts to degrade too much and you're good to go. it was luckily the driver side axle which is no more than 2.5 feet long so there was no bending or damage HOWEVER. i think somewhere along the line while doing the clutch job the half shaft on the passenger side did get a bit bent cuz I'm getting a wobble sound past 40MPH. That being said ill be going to get my tires rotated and an alignment tomorrow ( yes i know i basically had the whole car apart and didn't rotate my tires I'm lazy lol) and ill let you guys know if that corrects the wobble. Also my tires rant directional so if that doesn't help ill swap the driver and passenger side wheels and make sure i didn't damage or knock off the balance of the rims somehow. sorry for the long post.

 

ps no trans fluid seems to have been lost. there was no puddle in the am and when i removed the actually trans axle nothing came out. seems fine. Ill check tomorrow when i rotate the tires and that bolt is much more accessible.
ps this is for mt lion and his response was for you sir

 

Thanks for the update. I dont think its possible to "knock" off the balance of tire unless your removed the tires from the rims and put them back on! I think your allignment is most certainly what is causing your wobble.

Glad to hear that you got the axle back in. Interesting that you heard a click. Is there some kind of retaining clip in there?

 

haha okay so i went to the alignment shop and my alignment is PERFECT then i was like damn i wonder what it is and i crawled under the car while it was on their lift and looked and the passenger side axle was also not all the way seated. granted it was MUCH less extruded than the driver side. so I'm popping it back in today and ill update again.

 

The moral of the story: always make sure you get it all the way in (that's what she said)

 

What is causing this axle seating problem? Was it just not installed correctly or is there some kind of keeper not locking them in place?

 

DAMMMMMMIT! as i was reading that i was totally gonna thats what she said you but you did it first! we popped the ball joint and control arm off tonight and gave it fast slide in. Seems to be ridding smooth no more bumping and jerking.

 

its just not installed correctly and the C clips were a bit out of shape so we adjusted them and properly installed them.

 

So many innuendos you could read in there; I'm just gonna leave it alone

Seriously though, I'm amazed that you still have perfect alignment after removing and messing with the axles like that. Even removing and replacing the spindle nut! I'm impressed.

 

keep in mind i also removed the entire knuckle and pressed in a new bearing haha