I’ve got a 91 LS with the stock B18A1 and cable transmission. I noticed yesterday that the cable is cutting into the release arm. Looking around further it seems like the arm may be slightly cracked and is bending, causing the cable to hit the side of the release arm instead of thread through it. Check out the pics below, the red circle shows the point that looks broken/cracked and the blue circle shows the cable cutting into the side of the release arm. It is hard to see in the pic but it has worn a good sized notch in the arm.
Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I’m running a pretty stiff clutch and replaced the clutch cable about 6 months ago. When I replaced it I didn’t notice that the old cable had been cutting into the arm or anything.
Before that I had been running the stock clutch cable for at least 50,000 miles on this same clutch so it seems to be a new problem.
The old cable may have had enough ‘stretch’ in it to take the brunt of the abuse of a stiffer pressure plate… possibly after relplacing the clutch cable, the next weak link was the fork/arm? I dunno, that’s the only real thing I could think of, totally guessing lol. Definitely get a new fork.
Yeah, I was wondering if that might be the case as well since I didn’t see any cracking when I replaced the cable.
I guess as a follow-up question, has anyone ever had their release arm break? I can buy a new one from Acura for only like 26 bucks but if I’m just going to break it again I’d prefer to reinforce it or something before re-installing it.
I some how managed to twist one, dont know how it was bad enough to throw the clutch out of spec.
to be honest, i havent heard to many stories of these things failing so dont worry to much about it. I picked up a new one from the dealer, replaced it and havent had a second thought about it since.
Thanks for the reply. Mine looks like it is twisting as well. The car does have 316k miles on it, original transmission as far as I know. I’ve had this clutch in for about 50k or so. I guess it isn’t unrealistic to think that fatigue could cause cracking/twisting after that many cycles.
Looking at the crack in the pictures, would it be possible to bend the end of the arm back so the clutch wire won’t contact it and then weld it back together? I’m trying to avoid having to drop the transmission just to replace the release arm.
I had one break on me after I paid someone $200 to replace the clutch. Took it to real shop and paid beaucoup $$ to get it replaced. Never paid anyone to work on my cars ever again, lol. I would just drop the transmission and replace it
I think that is what I am leaning towards. I’ve been wanting to buy a welder for a while so I thought this might be a good excuse but I think replacing the arm would be best. Fortunately I have another car I can drive while this one is down.
I feel you on not paying people to do mechanic work. When I got my first car someone quoted me over $300 to replace a master cylinder. Once I looked up how to replace it and how cheap the part was I fixed it myself and haven’t used a mechanic since. That was almost ten years ago.
