Adjustments of clutch pedal on 2004 honda accord; hydraulic clutch system

does anyone know if there’s a way to adjust the clutch pedal so that it begins to engage the clutch [pressure plate, cl.disk, flywheel] when it is further off the floorboard?

my 2004 5-spd clutch begins to engage the mechanism about a quarter-inch off the floor. the clutch system on this car is a ‘closed hydraulic system’ and i suppose it has no ‘adjustment point’.

help! thanks.

this problem, whether of perceptions or of real hard mechanics, is solved, for practical purposes, as the tiresome thread below divulges, somewhere in its mid-section, where esophagus meets the Guts, and a weird “sidestep” procedure is suggested–
applying that ‘sidestep’ tip appeared to ‘solve the problem’,
and at present i have no logical or rational account for how this magick work’t.

    Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch

Has the hydraulic system been opened for any reason, even to bleed it? I don’t know if your car is like this, but some hydraulic clutches will not feel right after bleeding unless you “sidestep” the pedal a few times. This is worth a shot since it is free and you can do it on your own in less than a minute. If the clutch has been bled and this was not done, it may be all you need. I have seen it on internal and external slave cylinder setups, so give it a try. To do this, just push the clutch to the floor and let your foot slide off it, allowing it to snap back up on its own. Repeat several times and see if it helps.


Re: Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch


dang interesting man. but . . . b-b-b-but! this cl. system has never been opened-- while we’ve owned the vehicle (that commenced at 64K miles; it now has 82K).

allow i shd sound out, again, the Litany on Honda, the jap vulgate version,
praise that is for modern-day auto technology generally!
it goes like this:
CAD programs and precise engineering analytical tools, along with en-acting robots–who, being nourished and fed on the pure science data–deliver us products that are design-incarnate;
& behold-- the unibody sculptured look is borne, as well as
(from my experience) engines that will run certainly ~ 250K miles, without rebuild! and not be at a point of tiredness or inefficiency. for such reasons i bought this accord 2004, used. never had a problem (i changed the timing belt when i got the vehicle, that’s all) and now this clutching perception threatens to throw my whole religion into question . . .
wot neck’st?


Re: Re: Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch


i went out and tried that wee technique you described
–nothing ventured / nothing gained, was the motivation–
since it costs nothing, and shouldn’t do any damage to the vehicle (if it did some damage i’d say it was decrying a defect that needed to be discover’d anyway!) i proceeded.
guess what!, my “perceived” clutching problem, a matter of tolerances of pedal play measured off the floor’d pedal position . . .
appears to be resolved.
& i’ll be Dip’t I S if the pedal isn’t
performing to those remembered specs of yore.
that is, it now has an adequate travel off the floor before beginning to engage the clutch to flywheel business.
one caution i guess: this wasn’t a “rigorous” test (no double-blind or placebo flapdoodlin’ was used),
therefore i speak of administering a procedure that 'SEEMS TO HAVE’
fix’t my problem; however,
maybe the problem, all along, was only one of perception!
–in which case the “sidestep” was as good as a placebo–
i thank you again. m.


by: 87_Ranger 05/08/2009 1:06:56 PM
Top 250 Contributor
Re: Re: Re: Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch


Congrats on the fix & kudos to mark9207.
Who would have known that something so simple would be the fix. Go figure.
Updated: 05/08/2009 01:07:50 PM

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by: 87_Ranger 05/08/2009 11:44:57 AM
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Re: Re: Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch


Take a look at the DIY/do it yourself section of your Accord owners manual & you might find something similiar to this.

From the DIY section of my wifes 02 Sonata owners manual:

“With the engine off press lightly on the clutch pedal until you feel a change in resistance. This is the clutch pedal free play. The free play should be within the limits specified in the illustration -.24 to .51 inch. If it is not, have it inspected by your Hyundai dealer & adjusted or repaired if necessary.”

Your Accord should be similiar & from your description I think your pedal will have a lot more freeplay than .51 inch.

Try as i might i cannot convince my dear wife to drive a manual trans. But, i must say that i have never driven a better automatic than the slap shift auto in her Sonata. And the trans has been trouble free for it’s first 136,000 miles.

Whats your secret? How did you convince your wife to drive a stick?


Re: Re: Re: Re: hydraulic clutch on 2004 Accord, specs for pedal travel- before engage clutch


if you refer, above, to my late post to mark9207, you see that my issue involved a problem that commences at the pedal floor’d position, not at the full engaged position where pedal is at ‘top’ and has some degree of travel before starting to
DISengage the pressureplate mechanism.

it was in ought-like-'85 when i acquired a '91 honda accord with an automatic transmission; my daughter had one whose performance was impressive to me; it could peel rubber with the trans, and there was no slippage . . . it was then i determined that the Age of the Reliable Fluid Drive had come in to its own! My twin of her Accord rather confirmed this assessment.

used to be, i RAN automatics; they failed, and they had to be replaced, but no stick shift, manual x-missions had ever betrayed me (you might have to change out a clutch disk, is all).
and in town, if it’s urban like Austin, one adds years to one’s halting (motile, or locomotive) life in commuter traffic, by using an automatic trans.
–i further noticed that mpg with automatics seemed to suffer negligibly, if at all, compared to manual x-missions–but with a proviso that I AM DOING the driving, cause i know how to shift and optimize the gears etc–

long story short, & leaving out the chase entirely . . .

my wife is a mechanical engineer, soi disant, or with laymen’s claims–so SHE was the one said “git it, git it” when we found this manual.
i thought, “what the hell–i like 'en too!” – so
Even tho the automatic had risen in my pantheon of drive trains to be the Mover of Prime Preference, i went with this 5 spd sassy little four-adore . . .
only to discover very soon,
her appreciation of manual x-missions didn’t include a keenness to “torque”, the useful physical feedback continuum the engine conveys to the ‘attuned’ driver–that is a determinative guide telling when to shift gears, & so making it possible even TO IMPROVE upon the efficiency of automatic x-mission sensors.

i’ve forever been coaxing her to forget about numbers and lines on the tachometer, and instead cultivate, by The Feel, the sense of “how tight the engine’s winding” to get some proprioceptive finesse into the motoring experience, like it was meant to be fun to do.
why have a manual shift if it cain’t beat an automatic on mpg??? unless it be for ‘the fun of it’!
DRIVE!!! . . . he said.