Yesterday morning I went to start my car, and found something to be wrong with the clutch. It felt like what I imagined it would feel like if there were a leak in the hydraulic tubing, but I checked the reservoir it's still topped off. Basically, there is no resistance whatsoever in the first two thirds of travel, and the entirety of the engagement takes place in the last third. When I pop it, it returns quickly to the point at which it starts to engage (two thirds of the way down) and slowly travels all the way back up. I went for a short drive in a failed attempt to try and diagnose it, and when I don't balance it with the gas when coming off of it the transmission clunks loudly. This leads me to believe that the clutch itself still has the correct amount of travel.

Has anyone had similar problems/does anyone know what may be going on?

Thanks in advance.

 

If it just started acting up w/ no prior warning, I would say it's a dead master and/or slave. Kneel at the drivers door, pump the clutch pedal w/ your arm, and look under the car at the slave to see how much it moves.

Also... when was the last time the fluid was changed / bled? (should be done yearly ... or at least every other year).

 

Thanks. Finally got around to doing that test, and the operating cylinder engages just as it feels like it ought to. This narrows down the problem to somewhere in the pedal/master cylinder or the hydraulic lines. It has been a while since I changed the fluid, but given that this pretty much happened over night I doubt it's part of the issue, just another thing to deal with along the way. Any other ideas to throw out there?

 

You can adjust the clutch pedal, but you have to do some serious feet-over-the-top-of-the-seat-head-stuffed-on-the-floorboard gymnastics or remove the seat and try it. There's a bar with a nut attached to the clutch pedal assembly that might have gotten loose. These cars are old and weird stuff happens...trust me.

It's WAY up there under the dash, so have fun with that.

If the adjustment doesn't help, check your slave on the side of the tranny 1st. It's the cheapest and easiest fix. Oh...mark the connection bar with a sharpie so you know where it was before you adjusted it.

Just for fun (I'm thinking here...so bear with me) you just might want to try and bleed the line at the slave cylinder. Two person job with a lot of "PUSH.... RELEASE..." happening. Makes for a good beer drinking afternoon. Do the same with the master.

Let's see....what else? Ah, nothing I can think of without pulling the tranny and checking things with the throwout bearing.

 

I checked the assembly under the dash and everything appears to be well; thanks for the input. My next assumption is that there's an air bubble somewhere in the hydraulic line. Does this happen? If so, where does air tend to get in? I'd hate to change my fluid and get this all taken care of then have to redo it in two weeks…

 

Grab a friend, bleed the clutch, if that doesn't fix it, I'd suggest getting a new slave, as it's cheaper to replace. I'm leaning with Nismo, if there was no prior warning, or no symptoms beforehand, it sounds like the slave or master bit the bullet