Clutch on the '82 has just barely 100K freeway miles on it and feels about shot. It has trouble grabbing in 1st (especially when the car is cold) and I lurch down the driveway like an idiot who doesn't know how to drive a manual. It slips intermittently shifting into 2nd, 3rd and once in a great while, 4th. OD engages smoothly and stays engaged for the duration of my commute.

The original clutch was 16 years and over 200K miles old when it was replaced. So it appears that I have set a world record for the shortest clutch life-4 years!! I bought the car with about 70K on the clock and got another 130K+ out of the factory clutch, so it can't be my driving habits (which haven't changed at all in the last 4 years).

So either the mechs. charged me for Sachs parts and installed some POS aftermarket clutch kit, or it's an internal tranny problem. Clutch didn't feel "right" when I got it back from the shop, but after a few thousand miles and fiddling with cable adjustments it felt "normal" again-until recently.

Only other "clue" I can think of is that it (tranny? clutch?) will occasionally squeal when accelerating in 1st. Sounds like a bearing or something, but I know what the t/o bearing sounds like when it's cooked, and that's definitely not it. M46 is also hard shifting into 1st when the car is stopped. Often have to shift down into second and then thru neutral and into 1st to get it to go in.

Any ideas, gurus? The car has about 310K miles on it. The tranny has never been rebuilt, believe it or not, which is why I have suspicions that it might not be the clutch.

Would appreciate any tips or advice about this.

TIA,
-Jim