strange clutch behavior

[lipi]

The clutch on my 98 corolla has been having a strange issue for about a month now:
If I don't release the pedal completely (100%) after shifting, when pressing it down again, the clutch plate won't release, and the transmission gets stuck in whichever gear it was. Unless there is enough room to release the pedal again and hence speed up, the only way out of this was to switch off the engine.

I kind of learned how to cope with it by now, paying attention to completely take my foot off of the clutch. But e.g. backing up is still a problem since then you have to use some clutch control, and this almost always results in getting stuck in reverse.

I took the car to service but the mechanic couldn't figure out what the problem was without taking the car apart.

Has any of you experienced similar things, or happens to know what is the cause of this issue?

Thanks for your help!

[fishexpo101]

Couple of things that could be possibly be the issue here - one is a faulty clutch disc. If the disc is burnt or damaged, it will "stick" like that. Can be intermittent, which can complicate the diagnosis.

Another is a bad slave cylinder. If the clutch slave cylinder is not holding pressure, it can cause the clutch disc to not pull away from the pressure plate. Along with that could be a bad clutch release bearing - though normally, when they start to go bad, you'll get a lot of noise when you press in the clutch pedal.

Some questions to get a better understanding of what is going on:

How many miles do you have on this clutch disc?
When you press in the clutch pedal - is there quite a bit of resistance or very little resistance?
How often do you change the brake fluid in the clutch master cylinder?
Have you bleed the slave cylinder?
Have you double checked the pushrod length? Clutch pedal free play?

[lipi]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try to clarify as much as I can. I bought the car within 6 months, so unfortunately I don't when (if at all) the clutch disk would have been replaced. The car has about 110K miles on it.

-Pressing down the clutch is easy, but feels normal (nothing notable compared to the other car's I've driven before - and that's quite a lot). When releasing the pedal, the clutch engages very quickly (close to the floor). Sometimes, when idling with depressed clutch and transmission in 1st gear, I feel it requires some extra effort to keep the pedal depressed (but in this state I can still shift in and out of gear smoothly). Though lately I've been trying to always put it in neutral when idling.

-When I operate it "normally", ie taking my foot off the pedal completely before depressing it again, then there is no noise, the shift is perfectly smooth, you wouldn't notice that there is anything wrong.

- I can always produce the malfunction for example by backing up a yard or two. Also when inching forward in rush-our traffic, the same thing happens every single time: I get stuck in first gear.

- The mechanic said he'd checked everything that he could without seriously dismantling the car. Unfortunately I don't know if this includes checking the pushrod length or bleeding the cylinder.