Dear fellow Primers,
I decided after all to get my clutch master cylinder replaced by my local mechanic whom I've known for 10+ years.
Quoted at $390 out the door parts and labor, it seemed worth it not to have it done by the dealership for
over $600. He seemed to be mechanically competent, and he sounded confident that his shop was up to the job.
I dropped the car off and had him also install my new SOS steering rack bushings with the clutch master cylinder. After I got my car back I immediately noticed the alignment was completely off, which he refused to acknowledge responsibility for and I had to get the wheels aligned again at the tire shop (details in the SOS Steering Rack group buy thread).
That evening I drove home from the shop already irritated about the misalignment, and then
I noticed a slight mechanical wurring sound from the engine compartment that I never noticed before. It sounded like the clutch or gears as it's sound was consistent with the engine revs. I put the car in neutral as I was still rolling and revved to engine to see if it was still making the sound. At low RPM's it did not, but at around 3-4k it sounded like something was catching and it made the same mechanical wurring sound. Now I was really mad
. I thought after all the headache over the aligmnent and now it appears the clutch master cylinder was improperly installed. Perhaps the clutch was not fullly disengaging I thought, as the friction point is consideralby lower than it was previously (it still caught a little way from the fully depressed point).
I called my mechanic the next day and asked him to look at it, at which point he seemed slightly irritated as this was the second time I came back to his shop complaining about his work. He sat in the car and felt the engagement points, revved the engine in neutral and found nothing to be wrong with the car. I told him that it made a minor mechanical sound when revving in neutral and he then got even more irritated and told me that I could damage the car when revving the engine with the clutch depressed, which was not what I was doing and explained to him again that I was revving it in NEUTRAL! Regardless, he found nothing wrong so off I went.
The car seemed to behave normally the next couple of days until
I got the revs up onto the freeway when the car made an unpleasant smell. My girlfriend told me it smelled like burning oil as we were driving at freeway speeds (I lost most of my sense of smell earlier this year unfortunately) but I could definitely smell something unpleasant. Perhaps burned oil it was but I couldn't check on it until today when I got on the freeway and it made the same smell.
The exhaust tips were fairly black after that, but I didn't get to see any blue smoke. The smell also comes fairly strong in the engine compartment.
The golden question is: Could this strong smell be clutch related as it did not make a burning smell before I had the master clutch cylinder replaced? Could it be related to the mechanical sounds I hear from the engine compartment? Or is it completely unrelated and can I bless my mechanic for all the harrassment I've given him?
Please let me know! I'd hate to be burning up the clutch or let the problem whatever it is continue without knowing what it is.
I am probably going to take it to the dealership unless anyone can recommend a competent NSX mechanic in the SF Bay area.
I will keep you posted.
Thanks,
Tai
