Drove my 8 to the Grand Canyon today and as I was looking for parking, noticed it was hard to put into gear. Eventually it got impossible to put into any of the higher gears, including reverse. It will go into first with some struggle, but when the car is off the gears slide in smoothly. I thought maybe my clutch pedal wasn't disengaging the clutch all the way, but I looked at the pedal assembly and I can't see anything wrong with it. I also started to smell a strong gas/fume smell but there was nothing visibly leaking. Any help would be great, as I am stranded at the Grand Canyon until I get this figured out. Thanks!

Side note: I would search a little further, but I only have enough signal out here to load a couple pages.

 

I had a similar problem in a parking lot last year. The car would go into gear fine with the car off, but with the car on I couldnt get it into gear at all. Had it towed to the shop and it turned out that I blew the pilot bearing on the clutch, so it couldnt actually engage the transmission. Hope you get it sorted quickly!

 

Could the clutch pedal have broken?

Does the clutch pedal seem too far down and close to the brake pedal?

 

Did you mean the throw-out bearing?

 

Well, after an hour or so of sitting, it works fine now. Maybe it overheated? I'm not sure but when I let it cool down I got back in and drove it fine. The thing that concerns me was the gas/fume smell. I don't smell that anymore either. Really confused as to what happened, because I would think if I blew out a bearing, it wouldn't be working right now. Still concerning because I have another 500 miles of driving in the desert heat and high elevation and I would hate for this problem to come back in the middle of the Mohave Desert lol.

 

Best of luck, ThomThom. Gorgeous work with the plastidip. I would do the same, but I am a coward

 

Yep, sorry.

 

I'm just throwing an idea out here but I'm not sure it's the actually solution to the problem. I've had this issue when autocrossing on hot (25° C) days. Your clutch slave cylinder and lines get hot when you park the car or are idling around the pits (no airflow through the engine bay to keep things cool, and it's literally right behind the engine, so not much air at the best of times) and the fluid begins to boil. Pretty much means you can't completely disengage the clutch. It's not always noticeable until it's gotten bad and you're taking off from a standstill. Flush the clutch fluid, if the pedal feels firmer at all it's a sign the fluid had been boiled or was very old.

 

Thank you! Yes, something didn't feel right spraying stuff on my car, but it turned out looking fantastic. Honestly it might be more trouble than it's worth. There are shops nowadays that will dip your whole car professionally for less than $600.

So far, this is the most likely explanation. It had to be a over heated related issue, because once it was given time to cool off, the problem fixed itself. The heat, and maybe the high altitude, as well as driving around in traffic looking for parking must've put a lot of stress on the slave cylinder. Might be worth it to upgrade to stainless steel lines before I drive back to Tennessee. Thanks for all the responses, I'm just happy I made it to LA with no further issues!