Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada, Vancouver's best auto service experience. We're talking cars. You're doing good this morning, Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So another 2008 Subaru Impreza. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: So this vehicle came to us with a concern of the clutch. And the specific concern of the owner was that he said the clutch fork was broken, which is not an uncommon issue on Subarus. He'd had a friend look at it and he could see the clutch fork was broken. So he was hoping not to replace the whole clutch because he said it had been done at some point in the past. But the fork needed to be replaced. So brought into the shop. Sure enough you know, it actually had the clutch slaves cylinder, which actuates the clutch taken out. You could see the fork was broken. Pulled it apart and found some interesting things of which we can look at pictures.
Mark: Okay. So there's our first one.
Bernie: Yeah. So this is the clutch fork. So what the fork does is it pivots on a, it's called a ball stud. And that red arrow is pointing to the ball stud, which we should not be able to see right now because what's happened is it's worn out. The fork is worn so badly that it's basically broken and the ball stud sticks through the fork. And that ball that actually acts as a pivot. So the clutch release bearing is located sort of where you're moving... in here. And that thing, basically when you push the clutch pedal, that piece moves forward into the clutch pressure plate, which releases the clutch. So that you can shift gears.
So with that ball stud broken, so in fact it certainly needed to have the clutch fork replaced. The owner was hoping not to do the clutch because he'd said, you know, it had been done at some point in the past, but what we found was it was actually in much worse shape than we expected and needed to be replaced.
So there's the new fork. What you're looking at on the right hand side is a brand new release bearing. You're pointing to that area that was broken.
Mark: So this basically wasn't there on this board. It's gone and there's an internal piece sticking through.
Bernie: Yeah, exactly. So the question of course is, you know, how does that happen? Well probably, possibly whoever did the clutch job last may not have lubricated it properly. If they hadn't, then of course there's metal on metal every time you push the clutch, it wore it through. What we find with Subaru, the clutch forks often break to the right of that ball piece. It will actually snap like that. Yeah, where you move in there. Sometimes those will actually snap and break, which seems to be a Subaru thing. Not too common on other cars.
So what we found with the rest of the clutch is that it had been overheated really badly. And the owner had explained to me, you know, I lent the car to a friend, who had I guess for about a month and then he'd driven with the person and found that the person tended to actually smoke the clutch up pretty badly while he was driving. So he felt like, oh no, maybe that was a bad mistake. Anyways, yes, make sure if you lend your car out, your friends know how to drive a standard because it can be expensive.
What we're looking at there, the clutch disc on the right hand side, you see that sort of bluish neon colour that shouldn't be there. That's a new disc on the left. It's all kind of coppery, just metal. That's how it should look.
Mark: So that's an indicator that this has been severely overheated because that purpley kind of disco colour there is not, it should be more cool copper.
Bernie: Yeah, that's the colour of very badly overheated metal. Sometimes you know, you may look at a motorcycle and you see they have like chrome exhaust pipes. They have that kind of colour to 'em, you know, it looks okay in exhaust pipe, but not on a clutch disc. So this is an indication it got really hot.
Mark: Like a thousand degrees possibly or something.
Bernie: I don't know. But you know, when the clutch starts smoking, especially for a while, you know, if you do it once, maybe, it could be damaging, but if it's happened quite a bit, that's not a good thing.
Mark: And then when we're looking at this clutch, you were mentioning earlier that there's quite a bit of wear on this, even though it almost looks not that bad. This is not full depth on the clutch material.
Bernie: No, it's not actually. You know, usually when a clutch is completely worn out, you see those round bits. Those are rivets that hold the fibrous material onto the clutch disc. And those I mean, most often that fibrous material will be worn right down to the rivets and the clutch will be slipping.
And this one wasn't slipping, but, you know, it was not too far away from doing that. The other indication, if we look at the picture below it, Mark, the pressure plate. This is the device that clamps the clutch basically together and it's a big disc with a spring, and it clamps the pressure plate to the flywheel and that spring, which is a sort of part in the middle, all those little fingers that stick out. When a clutch is in good condition and the disc is thick, that spring when you bolt the clutch together will press down quite a long ways. And what we notice when we pulled the transmission out is the springs were sticking way out.
So right away we go, okay, this clutch is badly worn. So again, you know, overheating it will damage the spring too. It doesn't have the same tension. And I'm sort of thinking, speculating that that may be why this fork broke too because maybe things got so hot, if there was lubricant in that fork area maybe it just got melted out.
Mark: So this is another indicator of bad wear?
Bernie: Yeah. This is the flywheel. Now this piece, we don't replace, we have it ground. It's a specialty piece of equipment, it's a flywheel grinder and you basically grind a little bit of metal off of it. You can grind 'em quite a few times. They're just basically a solid chunk of metal. And we grind it so it's flat. Just like a brand new disc. Yeah. There are some clutches, it's called a dual mass flywheel where you can't grind it. That becomes a very expensive job. But fortunately on most Subarus, they don't have those.
And yeah, here we have the discs.
Mark: Kind of rare to have clutches in cars nowadays.
Bernie: You know, they're not so common anymore. If you want to get a manual transmission car, it's a hard feature to find. But a lot of people like it. And some cars actually, they feel like they're the right kind of transmission to have. Especially like a Porsche or something, you know, like a sports car like that where it does really feel much better to drive a car like that with a stick shift, I think.
Mark: If you're looking for service for your Subaru, if you've got clutch issue issues, if you smoked the clutch a few times. First don't, but if you have, if it's happened, if you have a teen who figures he's a racer or whatever. Guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there. Or you can phone them at (604) 327-7112. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks, Bernie.
Thank you, Mark. Thanks for listening.
