[duo325]

Once in every like 15 hard pulls in first gear...my the clutch becomes very hard and when i gas the car goes nowhere. Has anyone experienced this, and you would you please give probable causes. thanks.

 

[Blurvfocus]

Hard to say what's going on there, but you're going to be replacing that clutch soon. I can't think of anything that's easy-to-fix that causes a clutch to slip. Once that damned thing starts slipping, it's already toast.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

I've had this happen to mine, but the clutch pedal was not hard- it felt like it was doing nothing. What happened was that the slave cylinder became slightly off and stuck engaging the clutch. My theory of what yours is doing is likely the opposite of mine, it's sticking disengaged, and when you push on the pedal, it doesn't want to go anywhere.

Since the clutch and the brakes share a master cylinder, how do the brakes feel when this happens?

 

[Grumpy]

Just in case the slip causes confusion.......the fluid reservoir is shared only.......NOT the master cylinder.

 

[duo325]

i think

you may be right.. the clutch may be stuck in engaged.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

This effect caused my trip to Ford via the free tow to a dealer, they kept my Focus for 2 days, then called and told me there was nothing wrong with it. The next time it happened, the effect was not total, so the clutch was still grabbing a little. I nursed it home- I was less than 1/4 mile away, waited a few hours, and it worked fine afterwards.

 

[Blurvfocus]

If I understand what your saying, he should have excess free play while this is actually happening, right?

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

^^ Yeah, that's what mine did, I was surmising that his was sticking the opposite of mine which would give him a hard pedal. It doesn't make sense with the slip he described though. If the slave cylinder was sticking disengaged, then it would be hard to shift into other gears.