Clutch/shifting problems in extreme cold.

M

MDWoggon

Guest
Anybody experienced problems with thier Thunderbird Supercoupe having clutch/shifting problems with extreme cold temputures? I have a 94 Supercoupe 3.8L with about 60000 miles that won't shift into gear when outside temputures get to about 10-15 degrees. Believe the hydralic clutch fluid is contraminated but not experienced enough what to do about it other then taking the car to a transmission shop. Wonder if this is a common Supercoupe problem.
 
that sounds like a common any manual car problem in that cold of an enviroment. i bet after you drive it and shift it for a while it goes away, right?
 
can't exactly drive it...cause it doesn't go into gear. If it's not extremely cold out, heating the car up by leaving it idle will make it shift and can be driven but it'll leave me stranded if it sits somewhere and the temps get even colder.
 
i think they make some kind of additive you can add to your clutch fluid to keep it warmer, sort of like antifreeze but for ur clutch fluid. i dunno what its called but i thought i heard of this somewhere. it might mainly be for like backhoes and stuff which uses hydraulics similar to our clutches, but im not sure if you want to be puttin that in our cars.
 
Been there, done that...

I had the same problem a few weeks back. I thought my fluid was contaminated also, so I flushed it out and put new stuff in it. Worked for about a week...then it got cold again (d@mn Colorado weather). Then I noticed I was losing fluid for my clutch. Turned out to be my slave cylinder. It took a few weeks for it to actually start leaking out the bottom of the bell housing, but eventually it did. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but...
 
smokinn85 where in Colorado are you? We have a pretty tight group of SC fans here, and some pretty powerful cars (including 1 autorotor SC).

But I agree, slave cylinder is probably the culprit. Best bet is to replace both slave and master cylinder then you do it all at once and dont' have to worry about bleeding the system twice. Unfortionatly you need to remove the transmission in order to replace the slave cylinder.

Jeramie
 
92Bird...

92Bird, I just moved to Colorado Springs back in June from Sacramento, CA. Found my XR7 local from an older gentlemen (purchased it new back in 1990). Luckily I found this site prior to doing any work on the car. Probably saved me much heartache in the future. Reading the forums, I realized that I did need to replace as much as I could while I had the tranny out. So I replaced the clutch kit (Fenco unit from Checkers...I was a bit worried at first about the brand name, but it seems to be okay so far), slave and master cylinder (both Raybestos...read that in one of the forums...only go with Raybestos for slave and master cylinder), pilot bearing, rear main seal, output shaft seal, and flywheel (ordered a new one from Checkers considering it was $45 and local shops wanted $40 to resurface the old one. Plus I was sure how much was cut off the old one before and didn't want to take a chance with shim issues).
 
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