Problem:
I was driving down the road when I started to notice the clutching becoming easier to push in. After awhile the clutch would engage within inches of the floor. And now once I put it in gear it will start to go as if my foot was off the clutch. And then it is extremely hard/impossible to shift.

What could that be?

 

Sounds like a bad pilot bearing.

$5 part, have to take the trans out.

 

But is that something that comes on really fast? There has never been any signs, sounds, different feelings in the clutch till today. Has anyone ever had it go from really good to really bad in a matter of minutes? "That's what she said," sorry had to say it, Huge Office fan.

 

Come on man, you're usually sharper than that...

You are dealing with a leak in the hydraulic system. Most likely culprit is the slave cylinder, located on the top of the trans. Just follow the hose down from the clutch master cylinder and it dead ends at the slave. Look for traces of fluid in that area.

If that is clean, then we move on to the clutch master cylinder. If you need to replace that, then you might as well get a new hose and slave anyway because they are pretty cheap. Good news is, you don't need to pull the tranny. Bad news is, you will need to bleed the system after repairs.



.

 

Yeah I guess it sounds more like that over a matter of minutes. Haven't seen a bad pilot bearing in a while so I guess I must be antsy!

At this point it will be easy to check though, look for fluid in the clutch cylinder.

 

I'll take that as a compliment Kentetsu.

The reason I am surprised is because the owner who sold it to me claimed that both the master and slave have both been rebuilt in the last 6. When it happened I pulled over and checked both of them for leaks and none were found. Pulled back the plastic boot on the slave to check out the pistons condition, and it looked fine. At least it gives me a valid reason to put a new system in.