Newbie clutch problem

[Guest MAG]

I've had a 280z now for about a week, I havn't had any problems with my clutch until now. This morning when I got into my car (having not used in 2 day) I could not get the car into gear. I pushed the clutch down and the shifter did not want to go into 1st or any gear, including reverse. I tried this a few times (about 3) then I decided to push the clutch 4-5 times and I got into 1st no problem.

 

I then didn't have any other trouble with the clutch, but changing gears felt a little sticky, but that might be my imagination.

 

If someone has any idea what this is, please help me out. Remeber I'm new to theses cars and so dump it down for me. I would like to fix this as soon as possible. Also can I just bring the car to any garage and they will know how to fix it? What do you guys suggest.

 

Thanks in advance.

-Marc-Andre Gray

[JMortensen]

Sounds like a bad clutch master or slave cylinder. The master is the small cylinder in the engine compartment right next to the brake master cylinder where you check your clutch fluid (you said dumb it down) and the slave attaches to the bell housing of the transmission and it pushes the clutch fork which engages/disengages the clutch.

 

You can pull the boot off of the master and slave cylinders and see if fluid runs out. The boot for the master is up under the dash because it sticks through the firewall of the car. If either is leaking they need to be replaced. They usually get replaced as a pair. It's not hard to fix yourself, but any garage that has half a clue should be able to fix it for you and not charge more than an hour or two labor.

 

Sometimes when they go bad they really start dumping out the fluid and the master cylinder runs dry. In that case you might be able to limp it along by adding fluid to the master so that you can drive it to a shop.