Nope, the pedal return spring was okay. It returned the pedal after I pulled it a little way back from the firewall. I WISH it could've been something so simple.

 

I don’t think that’s a clutch failure, it’s a clutch actuator failure. At least that’s where to start. Probably all kinds of life left in the clutch disk. It’s holding just fine. That’s why you can’t get it in gear. You just can’t throw it out for some reason. Start by checking fluid of course, and master and slave cylinder. You didn’t break the firewall, did you?

 

Pushed down the clutch pedal and it didn’t return. I’m thinking same possibilities, slave cylinder, clutch master cylinder, firewall bracket. Something gave out!

 

Hmmm... you guys may be right. I could shift the car into gear when the motor was shut off and I remember that if I pushed the clutch pedal all the way in and started it with the transmission in gear, the car would move ahead so that means the clutch is actually working. I'm going to have them look at and diagnose it again...

 

I talked to them again and got a more thorough explanation of the diagnosis. The mechanic thinks the release bearing has gone and was suggesting that because there's so much labour involved in replacing that bearing, one might as well do the whole clutch which is probably not an unreasonable thing to suggest.

A week or so ago I had an interesting situation come up and I'm wondering if it might have something to do with what went wrong with my car's transmission. I drove down a friend's steep driveway and around the front of his cabin to go into his shop so we could work on the front brakes. When I got down to the flat part in front of his garage doors, I couldn't get the car out of gear. I had the clutch pedal all the way down and was pulling on the gearshift lever but the car would not go into neutral. It was literally stuck in first gear. I then drove the car up the driveway on the other side of his house and when I got to the top I could shift gears again as normal so I drove back down the first driveway and backed the car into his shop without any problems. Nothing like that happened like until the failure on the way home causing me to abandon the trip home and have the car towed to the stealership.

What do you think happened there to cause me to not be able to get the transmission out of gear that one time?

 

A failed release bearing could be the problem

https://cartreatments.com/clutch-release-bearing/

 

So I could get the M-Pact Stage 1.5 upgrade clutch but after I switched the shipping address from my home address to this town where my car is, the fast shipping cost doubled and the delivery time increased. If all went well, the earliest I could've gotten the part by was Friday which meant the earliest my car would be fixed by was Monday and that is too late. And given the time it was going to take to get any clutch off Rock Auto to this town - and the cost of the expedited shipping to where the part needed to go - I decided my only real option was to order a third party (LuK) OEM spec clutch kit from a parts store in town who could get the parts here in a day. This kit was also available on Rock Auto. Here is a link to the info sheet on it.

I talked to a guy at M-Pact about their line of upgrade clutches and he said their Stage 1.5 upgrade clutch may not necessarily be as long lasting as ordinary organic clutches as the sintered ceramic side of the disc can fail sooner than an organic clutch disk under some conditions. For that reason, I think I would've gone for the M-Pact Stage 1 upgrade kit if I had the luxury of time to wait for it but if that was the case, I would've also been very tempted to buy the TurboTech Racing Stage 1 upgrade clutch kit which would've cost more money than the M-Pact kit but may have been better value in terms of performance and durability.

If I decide to keep this car long enough, I will go for one of those latter two options next time I need a clutch (if they're still available) but honestly, the problem with getting some parts for the SS, especially when I'm away from the big city I live in has made me reconsider whether I want to keep going with this car over the long term. It would be so nice to have a car where I can break down outside any small town or city out here and know whatever parts I need are going to be easily found and quickly sourced. The problem is, what would I replace that SS with that would (A) be affordable to purchase and own; (B) give me the performance and be as wickedly fun to drive as the SS is; and (C) be as practical insofar as being able to carry as much cargo as I can in the HHR - plus my two mid-size dogs? For the life of me, I'm just not sure what is out there that would fit that bill.

 

I’ve heard good things about the GMPP clutch but I don’t know if it’s still available or where to get it.

Yeah, a bad throwout bearing could be involved, but I still think you need to make sure everything else is working correctly before you take the transmission off.

Unless you really really want an upgraded clutch

But the clutch it came with is fine for spirited driving and even a bit of road racy driving. You didn’t have any trouble with slippage, did you? If you don’t plan on any torque-enhancing mods, what’s the benefit of a clutch upgrade?

The “stage” clutches are most often applied for drag performance. Or with highly enhanced boost which can simply overpower the original clutch even when already engaged, making it break free and slip and cook. And the stage 2 and 3 types of puck products have a reputation for terribly or impossibly grabby drivability problems, and short life.

 

Does anybody know anything about these LuK clutch kits circumstances forced me to go with? From what I've been able to read they're very good quality and that they're the supplier of OEM clutches to several/many car manufacturers, possibly including GM. If that's the case, I'm probably going to be okay with what I was able to get in short order.

And that problem that I described earlier when I couldn't get the car out of first gear and had to drive it a bit further on to get it to go into neutral and start letting me shift again, could that have been a sign that the release/throw-out bearing in the clutch was on it's way out? It was such a weird one-time thing.

 

Not being able to get it out of gear under load is exactly what would happen if you forgot to step on the clutch. And a clutch linkage not working is much like not pushing on the clutch. Getting off the hill released the load on the driveline and allowed you to slip it out of gear even though the clutch was engaged.