Hello all. I purchased a 2003 350z a few months ago. I am already as unimpressed with the car as I can possibly be and I am just trying to fix it and move on at this point. It is a 6 speed, new clutch/short shift kit, akebono brakes, upgraded exhaust and intake and a couple other small upgrades. Anyways I have spent more time working on it than driving it. I put about 150 miles on it until I was driving and my clutch pedal did not return. It was not soft at any point before this and it snaps down to the floor. Now I was able to get it into gear without grinding by rev matching a bit and luckily I was right up the street from my house. Now when I pull the pedal up, it snaps up. I push it in a little, and it snaps down. So I replaced what everyone always says goes bad on them. I did the master cylinder first. Still nothing. Did the slave today and still nothing. One thing I noticed while replacing the slave was that the plate coming out of the tranny that the slave pushes on has a lot of play in it. I can pull it in and out a bit as well as back and forth. Is it suppose to do this? There are not any good threads that I could find and I have searched through this forum a lot. This is the only other thing I can think of that could be causing the pedal to not return, as there is no resistance met at the slave pushing against the plate. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Hi jstottlemyer... I think you will have more replies if you break your posting into a couple of paragraphs with specific questions.

It sounds as though you have some aftermarket components on your newly purchased Z. If that is the case, you will need to do more research for solutions. One great resource you have is right here, my350z.com.

There is a lot of info here about “dead” clutch pedals, master cylinder, etc. Searching will give you a lot of info. If you cannot find the information you need after searching, post back to this thread. You will get more help.

--Spike

 

I have searched. And searched and so on. All answers say one of two things, dead master and dead slave which I have replaced. I cannot find much info on the clutch fork here though.

As far as upgrades, they play zero role in the clutch pedal other than the clutch that was installed itself. It was an OEM clutch, and flywheel though. Not sure why the previous owner put racing breaks, new exhaust and intake to only put the crappy OEM clutch back in with a short shift to go with it. But that's what he did.

I normally would not mind taking it to a garage, but I do not live in town and the tow bill would be hefty.

So how can you tell if the clutch fork is bad on one of these?