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Hi, it's Mark Bosterd. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, B.C.,
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Canada. Vancouver's best auto service experience. We're talking cars. You're doing good this
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morning, Bernie? Doing very well. So, another 2008 Subaru Impreza. What was going on with
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this vehicle? So, this vehicle came to us with a concern
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of the clutch, and the specific concern of the owner was that he said the clutch fork
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was broken, which is not an uncommon issue on Subarus. He'd had a friend look at it, and
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he could see the clutch fork was broken. So, he was hoping not to replace the whole clutch
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because he said it had been down at some point in the past, but the fork need to
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be replaced. So, right into the shop, sure enough, it actually had the clutch slave
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cylinder which actuates the clutch taken out. You could see the fork was broken.
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He pulled it apart and found some interesting things of which we can look at pictures.
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So, there's our first one. Yeah. So, this is the clutch fork. So, what
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the fork does is it pivots on a, it's called a ball stud, and that red arrow is pointing
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to the ball stud, which we should not be able to see right now because what's happened
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is it's worn out. The fork has worn so badly that it's basically broken and the
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ball stud sticks through the fork. And then that ball stud actually acts as a
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pivot. So, the clutch release bearing is located sort of where you're moving your
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in here. Yeah. And that thing, basically, when you push the clutch pedal, that piece
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moves forward into the clutch pressure plate which releases the clutch so that
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you can shift gears. So, with that ball stud broken, so in fact, it certainly
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needed to have the clutch fork replaced. The owner was hoping not to
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do the clutch because he'd said, you know, it had been done at some point
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in the past, but what we found was it was actually in much worse shape than
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we expected and needed to be replaced. So, there's the new fork. What you're
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looking at on the right hand side is a brand new release bearing that you're
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pointing to that area that was broken. Yeah. So, this basically wasn't there on
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this board. It's gone and there's an internal piece sticking through. Yeah,
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exactly. So, the question, of course, is, you know, how does that happen?
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Well, probably, possibly whoever did the clutch job last may not have
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lubricated it properly. If they hadn't, then, of course, there's metal on
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metal every time you push the clutch it wore it through. What we find with
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Subaru, the clutch forks often break to the right of that ball piece. It will
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actually snap like that. Yeah, where you move in there. Sometimes those will
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actually snap, break, which seems to be a Subaru thing, not too common on
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other cars. Because what we found with the rest of the clutch is that it had
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been overheated really badly and the owner had explained to me, you know, I
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lent the car to a friend who had, I guess, for about a month and then he'd
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driven with the person and found that the person tend to actually smoke the
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clutch up pretty bad while he's driving. So, he felt like, oh, no, maybe
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that was a bad mistake. Anyways, yes, make sure if you lend your car out,
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your friends know how to drive a standard because it can be expensive.
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What we're looking at there, the clutch disc on the right hand side, you
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see that sort of bluish neon color? That shouldn't be there. That's a new
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disc on the left. It's all kind of coppery, just metal. That's how it
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should look. So, that's an indicator that this has been severely
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overheated because that purpley kind of disco color there is not, it should be
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more cool copper. Yeah, that's the color of very badly overheated metal.
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Sometimes, you know, you may look at a motorcycle, you see they have like a
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chrome exhaust pipes and have that kind of color to them, you know. It looks
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like a cannon exhaust pipe, but not on a clutch disc. So, this is an
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indication it got really hot. Like 1000 degrees possibly. I don't know, but
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you know, when the clutch starts smoking, especially for a while, you
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know, if you do it once, maybe it could be damaging, but if it's happened
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quite a bit, that's not a good thing. And when we're looking at this
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clutch, you were mentioning earlier that there's quite a bit of wear on
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this, even though it almost looks not that bad. This is not full depth on
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the clutch material. No, it's not actually. You know, usually when a
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clutch is completely worn out, you see those round bits, those are rivets
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that hold the fibrous material onto the clutch disc. And those, I mean,
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most often, that fibrous material be worn right down to the rivets
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and the clutch will be slipping. And this one wasn't slipping, but
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you know, it was not too far away from doing that. The other indication,
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if you look at the picture below it, Mark, the pressure plate, this is
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the device that clamps the clutch basically together. And it's a
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big disc with a spring, and it clamps the pressure plate to the flywheel.
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And that spring, which is a sort of part in the middle, all those
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little fingers that stick out, when the clutch is in good condition and
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the disc is thick, that spring when you bolt the clutch together
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will press down quite a long ways. And what we noticed when we pulled the
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transmission out is the springs were sticking way out. So right away we go,
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okay, this clutch is badly worn. So again, you know, overheating it
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will damage the spring too. It doesn't have the same tension.
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And I'm sort of thinking speculating that that may be why this fork
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broke too, because maybe things got so hot. If there was lubricant in that
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fork area, maybe it just got melted out. So this is another indicator of bad wear?
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Yeah, this is the flywheel. Now this piece we don't replace, we have it ground.
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It's a specialty piece of equipment. It's a flywheel grinder, and you basically
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grind a little bit of metal off of it. You can grind them quite a few times.
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They're just basically a solid chunk of metal. And we grind it so it's flat,
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just like a brand new disc. Like real.
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Yeah. There are some clutches. It's called a dual mass flywheel where you
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can't grind it. That becomes a very expensive job. But fortunately,
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on most Subaru's, they don't have those. And yeah, here we have the discs.
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Kind of rare to have clutches in cars nowadays.
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You know, they're not so common anymore. If you want to get a manual transmission car,
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it's a hard feature to find. But a lot of people like them. Some cars actually,
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you know, they feel like they're the right kind of transmission to have,
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especially like a Porsche or something, you know, like a sports car like that,
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where it does really feel much better to drive a car like that with a stick shift, I think.
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If you're looking for service for your Subaru, if you've got clutch issues,
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if you've smoked a clutch a few times, first don't. But if you have, if it's happened,
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if you have a teen who figures he's a racer or whatever,
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guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at
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pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there.
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Or you can phone them at 604-327-7112. You have to book ahead.
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They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks, Bernie.
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Thank you, Mark. Thanks for listening.
