I have a 2003 honda accord (4cyl) that is having major problems. My husband believes I need either a new clutch or a new clutch master cylinder. I don't have the money to buy both parts (he will be doing the work), so I'm wondering if anyone can help me narrow it down??? The car is extremely hard to shift, especially into 1st gear when you come from a complete stop. By hard, I mean REALLY REALLY hard, as if you were trying to shift gears without using the clutch at all. I have to fight it to get it into gear and sometimes even have to resort to turning the car off, putting it in gear, and then restarting and going when the light changes (when at a red light). If you keep it in 1st gear at a stop light the car starts to stall out as though you don't have your foot on the clutch. He said he checked the clutch master cylinder and it isn't leaking, but I read somewhere else that it can be bad w/o leaking??? Help!!!!!

 

Check the fluid level first.

Then pull the "boot" back on the slave cyl - is there signs of fluid leakage?

 

Check the clutch like this:

Find the clutch slave cylinder, down between the engine & radiator. Have him watch that as you pump the clutch pedal down & up again & again. The throw-out lever should move back & forth about 12 mm.

Then hold the pedal down on the floor for a couple minutes. While you're holding it down, have him watch to see whether the throw-out lever slowly oozes back (compressing the slave piston back). It SHOULD NOT move back like that. If it does, the master is leaking internally. The master can leak back into the reservoir, so it doesn't leak OUT.

You can try bleeding the clutch fluid, and maybe it'll help for awhile. But IF the master is leaking back into its reservoir, that usually means you need a new clutch master cylinder.

 

Thanks guys. There was no sign of leakage, but we went ahead and ordered the master & slave ($80 new on ebay) and that corrected the problem. My husband also noticed that the clutch pedal was cracked and so we put in one a new one of those as well. My car is much better now! =)

 

I had a problem on my 2000ex and Poorman provided useful information on bleeding the system. This is an excellent website for those of us who intend to keep our cars for an extended period of time.

 

I was almost resolved to a new master and slave cylinder - until I saw the instructions for changing the master and saw the adjustment that I had missed in previous research. After some adjusting, my clutch behavior is as good as new.

I'm not good at graphics, so I'll explain the best I can. There are two adjustments under the dash: the switch and the master cylinder arm. I needed to back off the switch so I could "lengthen" the master cylinder arm and then adjust the switch for free play (this second step is available in many places online). To "lengthen" the master cylinder arm requires that we pull the clip and pin - but first loosen the lock nut (almost invisible to see) inside the fork of the arm (fork is a u-shape bent piece of metal on the end of the arm toward the driver; away from the firewall).

Basically, I adjusted so that the clutch pedal was further from the rug, meaning more travel of the pistons in both cylinders. In doing so, the master slave piston got to travel more (longer push from the pedal) increasing the travel of the slave cylinder / clutch fork from 9mm to 12 mm - actually too much - so I readjusted the arm length such that the clutch felt the best to my foot with plenty of travel between the disengage and the rug. Bravo. The switch then needs to be adjusted so that you have a little freeplay - not critical how much as long as there is some freeplay and there will be freeplay at all temperatures.

I hope this helps