Dear colleagues,
I opened this thread because I'm running out of ideas with the troubleshooting of my Omega's clutch/gearbox.
On the past months the clutch began slipping and on the last two weeks it happened even on the 2nd and 3rd gear, so I was thinking that after 200k km maybe it's time to replace the whole clutch kit
No problem with this, after searching this forum and the Internet and got opinions from many drivers I decided to buy a Sachs kit as I know this is a premium one.
Having the new kit in front of me, a packet of biscuits and the Omega Owners forum opened in my browser I read the thread made by JamesV6CDX [which by the way I want to thank him for the tutorial] and decided that I can give it a try and replace the clutch kit by myself with the help of my brother.
During the "surgery" we cleaned the bell of the gearbox from the debris done by the ex-clutch disk and checked the slave cylinder for visible leaks and if it was moving easily on the axle. We also cleaned the flywheel and all the surroundings for the remaining debris.
The whole kit was installed correctly using a tool like James had with the disk markings arranged as they should, "facing gearbox" and "facing engine".
After we finished aligning and installing the new kit and put everything back together, the gearbox and the exhaust mountings I moved to the air screw to change the fluid and remove the air bubbles that may have entered the pipes during the clutch swap.
Here comes the fun part, so bear with me
The first km everything ran smooth, it entered gears easily, shifting gears was smooth and that was calling for celebration, you know, a cuppa, as James said, haha
After washing our hands and changed our clothes we decided to take it for a ride, but after the next 1-2 km it began the fun part, or to better say, the most annoying part.
Switching to the 1st and the reverse gears was getting harder and harder as like the clutch wasn't disengaging or the linkage between the gear stick and the gearbox was misaligned. After we arrived back home we rechecked the pipes for air, re-flushed the fluid and greased the linkage to both the gearbox and the gear stick, both inside and underneath the car, as these were the easiest operations to be done.
The bad thing is that nothing changed, so after taking it for another ride, we tried one more time flushing the fluid.
Flushing the fluid again didn't helped us at all so we made a step further with our troubleshooting and replaced the master cylinder.
We replaced the master cylinder, flushed the fluid again, but unfortunately, nothing changed, the pedal wasn't stiff at all and switching gears with the car not moving was very hard.
We found out that with the clutch pedal fully kicked down, when you try to shift first and the reverse gears, the car moves very very slowly, like the clutch isn't disengaging at it's maximum.
So, before buying the slave cylinder and replacing the actual one which looks very good and that isn't leaking at all, do you have any advice for us like what to check or look for?
As a short summary, right now, the car behaves like:
- it's very hard to shift the first and the reverse gear with the car stopped but with the engine running
- while the car is moving, or the wheels are spinning, even a little, it's very easy to change gears
- if you start the engine with the pedal pressed you can shift gears easily, but if you take your foot off the pedal, the next time you want to enter the gear it is a real pain in the a*s
- if you first try to switch to 2nd gear, with the wheels not spinning, then you can somehow ease the shift to first and the reverse gears, like there's something misaligned
Bottom line, hope I didn't got you bored with this issue, but it's better to describe everything in detail than to raise other related questions
Hope you got some other ideas because I'm running out of and the slave cylinder's price is higher than the price for the whole clutch kit and as far as I know, if the slave cylinder isn't leaking, it should still be good for further use.
Thanks,
George