Clutch damper and bleeding

[Dietrich]

What does the clutch damper do anyway?. When I am pulling away from a stop and using a lot of clutch, like when starting up a hill, I get some judder in the clutch as I am engaing (or disengaging, whichever it is, letting out the pedal)

Also sometimers it will go into a gear easily, but sometimes not. I push in the cltuch and not only will it not go into any gear if not in gear, if it is already in a gear, it's hard to get out of it. I have to try again with the pedal, and sometimes that improves things. When this happens, I have to push pretty hard to get into first gear, which, of course, I don't like to do. Oddly, when I do this, it does not grind, which makes me wonder if my linkages are out of line.

So I'm going to bleed the system starting with the damper, and if bleeding doesn't work, I'll start rebuilding or replacing, but the parts store doesn't show anything about replacement dampers. Do these part wear out much and are they vital?

Thanks! I love my Pathy!

[Trogdor636]

People have removed them with no ill effect. That being said, mine just sits there, I've never even bled it and I've been fine.

[Precise1]

Yes, bleed the damper and then the slave cylinder. As he said, some people have removed them and others (me included) didn't have any issues or at least that bleeding didn't fix.

 

Give it a shot and let us know. There is a recent thread detailing the fittings used to bypass the thing...

 

B

[piste]

My 97 had a clutch problem that was very peculiar....after several years and numerous diagnosis it was replacing the clutch damper that finally fixed it. It's chronicled in a thread here that I believe is now at least a few years old...search "damper" and it should come up...if interested.