rdahm

iTrader: (6)

I was waiting to go and i had it in first, clutch all of the way in. I feathered it to move forward and it seems to engage sooner that i thought it would. So, i pushed the pedal all of the way back in and my car starts to engage!

First a little bit then more and more. I pulled my foot of the pedal and it was not coming back off of the floor. To shift into neutral was like shifiting without the clutch pedal in.

I pryed the pedal off of the floor with my toes ad it still does the same thing!

Whats going on?

Zyon13B

Check to see if your clutch fluid is leaking. Jack the front up and check the drivers side of the tranny.

Zyon13B

Do you drive without shoes?

rdahm

iTrader: (6)

haha no, unless it is flip flips i cant drive with those.

See after i get going (1st to 2nd) (2-3) it seems to engage further out like it used to...

As soon as i start feathering a gear it slowly engages closer and closer to the floor

I will check the fluid

adam c

iTrader: (2)

You may have a bad slave cylinder. Buy a rebuild kit from Mazda. It's an inexpensive kit, and not too difficult to install.

skunks

you got a leak in yoru clutch system, check clutch master cylinder, lines (both soft and hard) and slave the last. you might wnan aalso try flushing hte system.

rdahm

iTrader: (6)

bingo! Its a leak. the point where the soft meets the hard there is a bend and it leaked from there

well the car leaked enough fluid to engage the clutch and it rocketed right into traffic! I went between two cars almost got hit!

Done for the winter...

skunks

holy crap, you keep driving the car?

rdahm

iTrader: (6)

well that is when it first happened. I had to cause i was in the middle on the road. lol it wasnt a quiet road either lol. I got off to the side after a bit... It was an experience!

FD_Newb_1974

I have this same problem now. Clutch engages, sometimes (seems to happen more when car is warm - although not repeatable), near the floor. The clutch is a new ACT street/strip with about 3,000 miles on it, 1,500 highway miles. The clutch line is stock and the motul fluid has about 17,000 miles on it..about 2 years (fluid still looks clean).

If I hold the clutch in at a light, It seems I lose pressure and the clutch will engage very close to the floorboard. NOTE: I don't make a habit of this.

I have checked for leaks and there aren't any.

Could it be air in the line? Could it be an old line expanding with the stiffer clutch? Could it be slave cylinder? Could it be master?

After I "drive" the car some..a shift or 2, pressure comes back up and the clutch goes back to normal.

My plan is to install a SS clutch line, as I understand the 11 year old stock lines can expand, especially with a stiffer clutch.

Does this sound like one of the cylinders going bad? Or does it sound like my clutch system just needs some routine maintenance?

thanks!

DaveW

Hard to tell what the actual problem is from here, but it sounds like it could be the check-valve between the master cylinder and the reservoir isn't sealing all the time. This would cause the pedal to sink with no external leakage. This valve is there to replenish the master, and to allow for fluid expansion in the system when thing get warm. It is open when the pedal is not depressed, and is supposed to close on first movement of the master piston.

FD_Newb_1974

anyway to "check" the check valve?

Sgtblue

iTrader: (16)

FD Newb,

As a fellow "newb", I'm not sure what your problem might be either, but the fact that performance changes after the car is warm was a problem I had. Like you I just finished installing a new ACT and PP but my fluid looked like swamp water. A friend suggested that the clutch slave needed bleeding. Apparently the air and water in the system expanding w/heat was why things changed when it warmed up. Made sense and was cheap to try. Bleeding the clutch slave and putting in new fluid seems to have cleared most all of that up.

FD_Newb_1974

Thanks for the tip. This seems to be consistent to what some fellow friends, and road racers, are telling me. Apparently, some high performance fluids have the tendency to absorb more water over time.

DaveW

Good point on the fluids.

Unless you are road-racing the car (using the brakes extremely hard) many H-P fluids are over-kill, plus are bad in that they do absorb too much water and also have low lubricity, leading to brake/clutch seal sticking and wear.

I've found over the years that Castrol/Girling LMA (now available in DOT 3 & 4 - meets both ratings) is extremely good on all counts, plus it's cheap, available at a lot of common auto-parts stores, and comes in pint bottles, assuring that it's fresh.

clayne

slave cylinder.