Clutch woes. Master? Slave?

Earlier this year, my clutch would not stay disengaged. Both the master and slave cylinder were old so I replaced them both. They've been good for 4-6 months and 5k miles or so. A few weeks ago I drove the car from Houston to Austin, no problems. Pulling out of the driveway the very next morning the car wouldn't go in gear; the clutch wasn't disengaging. After some poking around I found the plastic nipple on the feed line from the brake fluid res. was broken on the master cylinder.

R&R a new master cylinder and now the car is being very strange. Sometimes the clutch still won't disengage, sometimes it will, but there isn't any rhyme or reason to it. I bled it using the two people pump method first. After it was acting funny there I vacuum bled it. No bubbles were coming out. Then, just to make sure, I had someone pump it up and cracked the bleed screw. The stream was solid, no bubbles at all.

When the car is off, everything feels fine. I can start the car with it in first/sometimes neutral and use the clutch like normal, briefly. Once it decides it's done, I can't get it into any gear and no amount of pumping on the clutch will get it to disengage. I have to turn the car off and restart it a differing number of times each time before the clutch will "let go" and be usable again. Then it will restart the process of being usable for an unknown number of times and then quit again.

The car was great before the new new MC swap. Clutch engagement is solid and no slipping. Before I swapped both clutch pieces I had not had a problem in 60k miles.

Did I get a bad MC out of the box? Is something wrong with the slave? Did the clutch decide to eat it at the same time as that plastic nipple?

If you haven’t replaced the clutch and the hydraulic system is good, my guess is that there is something mechanical with the clutch, perhaps the fork or ball pivot within the trans itself. It’s possible the clutch fork retaining clip was dislodged and now the fork is sort of hanging around in there.

The only thing that makes me question that is the car was working perfectly prior to the clutch MC breaking again.

With the work involved, I definitely replace the master cylinder before the clutch. Reverse bleed it.

-Todd

If you've not run low on fluid at the brake MC reservoir then I don't see a reason to bleed the clutch system. I'd put a gauge on the line to the slave (or the port at the MC) and see if the MC can build any pressure. If it can't build pressure there's your culprit.

If it does build sufficient pressure then I'd reattach and bleed the clutch and see if you can get the slave to move. If it doesn't respond then I'd say that's the problem.

A failed slave will be leaking fluid into the bell housing somewhere, at least that's my first inclination.

Steve