New Problem...Clutch issue?? Any ideas?

[JS7773]

Hey all,

[Short version at bottom]
Well, I've had another unique and unusual problem with my lovely Celica. For those of you who missed it I recently (maybe 2 weeks ago) was without my celica for almost 2 weeks while Toyota rebuilt my transmission because of a synchro issue. While they were at it they replaced Reverse, 2nd, and 4th gear as well as a ton of other seals, springs and other assorted parts. As I said I have only had the car back for maybe 2 weeks and have been driving quite nice.

I took a short trip to Florida (Left Wednesday night, arrived Thursday morning and came home Friday morning) When I encountered this problem:

Here I am driving down a 55 mph 2 lane road stuck behind a dump truck doing about 35... This is one of the famous FL roads where you can literally see a mile and there are NO cars coming so I drop her into 2nd and run up to about 7500 RPM where I push in the clutch and ATTEMPT to shift into 3rd. Well, I was stuck in Neutral...LOCKED out of EVERY gear sitting beside this dump truck and up ahead comes a semi barrelling down the road straight at us. I slowed way down and got behind the dump truck...still in Neutral...and still trying to get into a gear. At this time I noticed the clutch was stuck to the Floor! I slowed down to about 25...tapping the clutch the whole time when it finally popped back up and allowed me back into 2nd gear.

Any ideas on what could have caused this? The car drives fine as long as I am taking it easy, but as soon as I try to get on it a little it tries to lock me out of gear. Toyota doesn't have time to look at it until at least Monday or Tuesday.


[IN Short...]

at high RPMs under WOT clutch sticks to floor and will not allow me to shift into another gear until slowing waayyyyy down.


Thanks for your help...

[JT$]

I would most likely say that your teeth on your pressure plate are bent. I had the same problem with my car, so I just did the whole clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, and limited slip route. Eventually I think it bends the teeth enough that your clutch won't stick to the floor anymore but, you'll have a heck of a time getting it into any gears. Either don't shift at or over like 6k or get used to double or even triple clutching just to get it into any gear. I haven't had a problem since I upgraded everything and I saw with my own eyes that it was definitely the pressure plate that was messed up. My car runs way better than it has ever before and if you are going to replace the clutch and pressure plate, you might as well do the whole 9 yards.

[JS7773]

Well, I'm taking it in under warranty... It supposedly has a new clutch and pressure plate... ( I say supposedly because Toyota told me that they were going to put one on last time I was there...)

[JS7773]

They said they thought a finger was broken off of my clutch and they think my flywheel is warped.

Clutch #3 will be going in my celica shortly...