Said It Here

New clutch slipping or not fully engaging after replacement

Even with a new clutch and machined flywheel, the clutch remains slipping as if riding the friction point, making it impossible to transfer power to the wheels or engage the brakes. The pedal lets you change gears or rev without moving, requiring custom modifications to the slave cylinder rod and spacer to fix.

Overview
People affected4 accounts across 2 forums
Workarounds found10 items attempted
Community agreement10 total upvotes

What the numbers show

Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count

  • The most recent one is from October 2026.
  • This comes up 11.0× more often in r/MechanicAdvice than across the site as a whole.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

10 items+ Contribute

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    Replacing the slave cylinder
    Did this help you?
  2. 2
    Bleeding and rebleeding the hydraulic system
    Did this help you?
  3. 3
    Spacing the slave cylinder back with a spacer and cutting down the slave cylinder rod
    Did this help you?
  4. 4
    Avoiding parking on inclines
    Did this help you?
  5. 5
    Inspecting and adjusting the handbrake cable or rear brakes
    Did this help you?
  6. 6
    Bleeding the clutch hydraulic system
    Did this help you?
  7. 7
    Checking or replacing the slave cylinder and clutch fork
    Did this help you?
  8. 8
    Inspecting clutch installation components such as the release bearing
    Did this help you?
  9. 9
    Deburring the edge where the input shaft goes
    Did this help you?
  10. 10
    Reinstalling the clutch correctly and driving on it
    Did this help you?
Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/MechanicAdvice3 people · September 2026

“with all 4 wheels in the air on jack stands, the clutch never engaged fully. I could change gears without pushing in the clutch and rev it without the wheels spinning.”source ↗

“Took it for a drive and found out it was like driving on friction point, it kept slipping.”source ↗

“No one that I talk to can figure out why this has happened. Can anyone? Is this going to ruin the clutch or cause problems”source ↗

Human_Currency_180 · r/MechanicAdvice · 7 upvotes

“i can pull it and the light will come on, it just won't apply the brakes.”source ↗

Professional_Farm411 · r/MechanicAdvice · 1 upvotes

“Now it goes into every gear perfectly fine with the engine off, but when I start the car it won’t go into gear.”source ↗

“The clutch pedal feels kinda soft compared to before.”source ↗

Upbeat_Eye_8937 · r/MechanicAdvice · 1 upvotes
r/AskMechanics1 person · October 2026

“I installed the stage three clutch backwards and drove on it for 100 miles.”source ↗

“When I first put the transmission on, it didn’t slide in all the way there was a small gap and I thought it was fine so I just tighten the bolts and basically pulled the transmission flush with the engine with the bolts, which is not what you’re supposed to do.”source ↗

“Should I reuse this clutch or should I just get a new one?”source ↗

TurboCessna · r/AskMechanics · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

r/AskMechanicsr/MechanicAdviceautomotive repairauto repairbrakesclutch replacementmanual transmissionmechanic advicemechanical issuetransmission issues

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