Strange behavior of the clutch/transmission - 89 Ciera SL 3.3l
 

I got an 89 Ciera SL 3.3l a few years ago with only 60,000 miles. I got some good help from the forum in my early days ;)

For the past year, it has not been used while I was away from the Big Island. Coming back from Christmas, and after changing the battery which died on the way, and checking all the levels, the car started immediately, which was good news! I made a quick drive around the block and all was fine.

A couple of days later (this morning) I started it and moved it on the lawn for a wash (badly needed). I suddenly lost traction, like if the clutch was not there anymore. Engine was happy running. I could feel a tiny hint of traction (not much) at high rev on the engine.

Well, I let the car there (was mostly on the lawn), washed it, went to do something else and came back, like an hour later.

Started the engine and put the transmission into gear. It moved the car for ~10s and then no traction anymore, though the engine was still nice and dandy. I could not hear any strange noise of any kind in the process

Any idea of what can be wrong? All the comments I found on clutch were mentioning the car stalling, which is not the case here...

A big mahalo in advance and aloha to all!

Chris

Likely clutch is bad - deteriorated!! change out the clutch-ASSEMBLY!! & have flywheel resurfaced!!