Hey guys so I'm having some issues after my clutch installation and looking for a little bit of help with what could be causing it. When I did the install I decided to stay as stock as possible with all the parts so I went with Luk for both the flywheel and the clutch/pressure plate. I changed the throwout bearing, input shaft sleeve, and the plastic sleeves for the clutch fork rod (all genuine mini parts).The car drove fine for about a week after doing the installation but soon after it started to become hard to shift into gears so I figured that the slave may have been going out so I decided to change both the slave and the master cylinder(also genuine mini). I did the clutch bleed by pushing in the slave cylinder all the way and hooked up my motive power bleeder and insured that there wasn't air in the system and left the clutch pedal down over night. I took it out the next morning and it drove fine for about 10 minutes and then it started doing the same thing. I ended up having to bang my gears all the way back home. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance!

 

So is it grinding going in to different gears like the clutch isn't working?

Or is it just really hard to get it into a gear?

Did it do this before you put the clutch in?

 

if it's completely stopped it's damn near impossible for me to get it into first or reverse. Once the car is moving I have to rev match to get it into the next gear. So it's almost like the clutch isn't fully disengaging when I push in the clutch pedal. It didn't do this before I did the clutch swap. The weird thing is that it's progressive. It drives fine for about 10-15 mins then it starts acting up.

 

Thats pretty strange, Im not sure how the clutch could stop working after you drive for 10 or so minutes.

I've only installed the valeo kit with the solid flywheel so I'm not sure how the luk setup works. I assume it's the dual mass flywheel, wonder if you got a bad one? Not sure if it could make the clutch not engage though. You didn't say the clutch slips when you get it in a gear so the clutch itself is probably fine. Pressure plate either works or it doesn't.

I would have thought air was getting in the line but you changed the slave and master cylinder. Would really suck to have to pull the tranny again so I would triple check the line and bleed it again. Unlikely but maybe the new slave is bad.

Can't imagine it's the tranny itself since it worked fine before you pulled it.

Good luck, maybe somebody else has an idea what might be happening. Hopefully one of the shop guys like detroit tuned or way decides to check the r53 forum tomorrow.

 

I would take a look at the modmini video on YouTube for the bleeding of the slave cylinder. I didn't have this problem with my Valeo kit but I was very cautious with the bleed of my new slave only because of how easy it is to keep air in that line.

Good luck and keep us posted!