V6 clutch judder

[Maria C]

Hello all

I'm the happy owner of a lovely 1998 V6-24v estate. I have been very pleased with the car, but have developed a problem with clutch.

It is an intermittent but at times quite severe case of clutch judder. We've checked for oil in the bell housing and found none. Now we are not sure whether the engine is misfiring at low revs under load, whether there is too much movement in the engine mountings, or whether it is something different altogether. The only other possible clues could be that the engine generally is not quite as smooth or powerful as I would expect a V6 to be, and idle is just a touch irregular. We also have the ticking/tapping noises, but I am reassured to read that that is probably due to the lash adjusters and nothing to worry about.

Any advice would be very welcome.

Thanks very much

Maria

[BraindG]

Hello all

I'm the happy owner of a lovely 1998 V6-24v estate. I have been very pleased with the car, but have developed a problem with clutch.

It is an intermittent but at times quite severe case of clutch judder. We've checked for oil in the bell housing and found none. Now we are not sure whether the engine is misfiring at low revs under load, whether there is too much movement in the engine mountings, or whether it is something different altogether. The only other possible clues could be that the engine generally is not quite as smooth or powerful as I would expect a V6 to be, and idle is just a touch irregular. We also have the ticking/tapping noises, but I am reassured to read that that is probably due to the lash adjusters and nothing to worry about.

Any advice would be very welcome.

Thanks very much

Maria


Ive got clutch issues atm, and the judder I had, i thought was the clutch.. However since changing the diff oils, front and back thats gone...
your low idle issues might be something to do with power? if you can check with a meter... I have similair issues... do a search under my name, and power...

[Nick Mann]

....whether there is too much movement in the engine mountings....

That has been talked about before, I think. After Barry's power search, maybe try searching for that? IIRC dealers have rectified judder problems by changing the engine mounts. Or I could be talking rubbish!

Oh, and welcome to the club! My first Galant was a 1998 V6-24 estate, I loved it!

[Kieran]

The judder problem is well known amongst the V6-24 crew it seems. Nick's old V6 Sport estate did it, My old V6 sport used to do it, and I think others have had the same.

My problems went away after allowing the clutch to 'slip' a lot for a few changes. My theory is that the friction material on the clutch plate gets 'notched', perhaps by engine vibration or a fumbled launch, and so the clutch plates never sit correctly afterwards until the notch gets worn smooth\- which I did by slipping the clutch and taking off some friction material.

I could also be talking utter hollyhocks, but it worked for me.

[Paul Beazer]

My V6 sport does it too! Only occasionally, perhaps we are just worrying unecessarily? If it does it all the time, then you worry about it!

[Maria C]

Chaps

Thanks very much for your advice!

Sorry for going silent after your helpful replies, but our long-awaited broadband installation actually knocked us off line for several weeks... so much for modern technology.

It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one with clutch judder. Like Kieran, I too had noticed that it is possible to achieve a temporary fix by slipping the clutch severely for a bit and sort of "burning off" the rubbish. My husband drives a Pajero, and reports that the Pajero Owners Club forum carries threads about similar problems; some suspect that cheap materials are used by Mitsubishi in their replacement clutch parts.

In my case too, tightening up the mount on the underside of the engine helped a bit; replacing all the mounts seems rather an expense so will try replacing diff oils first - that's probably quite a useful thing to do anyway.

Thanks again for your help.

Maria.