On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, William Mills wrote:
> I need to know what to check first about my clutch operation. Clutch
> was operating fine until today. While sitting at a red light with the car
> in gear and clutch pedal depressed, I suddenly could feel the car trying to
> pull forward. Of course the clutch pedal was already depressed so I quickly
> popped the shift out of gear to avoid moving into the car stopped in front
> of me. As I left the light I could tell that my friction point was now at
> the bottom of the clutch travel. Pumped the pedal a couple of times and the
> proper friction point was restored (about one-third from the floor). I
> pulled off to a safer area to try it out. Sure enough, as I held the clutch
> in the clutch was creeping to engage. Checked the fluid level in the clutch
> master cylinder. It was down a little but certainly not enough to have
> sucked air into the clutch hydraulic system. I went ahead and topped up the
> reservior anyway. I assume that the fluid is leaking internally by the
> seals in either the clutch master cylinder or the slave cylinder. No
> evidence of any external leakage yet.
>
> Now finally to the question, how do I find out which component is in need
> of rebuild or replacement. My first thought is to go ahead and replace the
> slave cylinder and hose. New slaves are not that expensive and this job
> would be much easier than removing and overhauling the master cylinder. Is
> there any way that I can determine where the problem lies, master cylinder
> or slave?
>
Check the slave cylinder for leakage. If there is none, pull back the
dust cover on the slave cylinder. If no fluid comes out, the problem is
in the master cylinder. This is pretty much the classic symptom of a
master cylinder with a deteriorating primary seal.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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