OMG I HATE this F'ing car!!!!! -- What it is or isn't

[Ingo Rautenberg]

Robby,

There are basically two scenarios and one is a lot easier to fix than the
other.

The first is you have an internal failure of the rubber bits in the clutch
master or clutch slave , and inevitably, if you replace one, the other goes
bad shortly thereafter or you replaced the wrong one.  In my experience,
however, this almost always happens after you've parked the car overnight
and you go to use it in the morning.  The clutch pedal actuation may have
been slower, less precise in the days prior to this happening.
Had this happen a few times.

The second is what happened to me this past winter, and to which Tony
Hoffman alluded to:  Perfect, smooth clutch action and then...huh?!? Why
won't the pedal come up?  Why isn't there any resistance?
In my case the nut for the adjustment where the pedal attaches to the clutch
master rod was not entirely snug against the clevis.  Then (I'm guessing
here), the angle of force on the rod was such that it somehow became
cockeyed and the rod bent and the pivot hole for the clutch master clevis
pin snapped!!!

So you need to replace the pedal assembly and the clutch master in this
case.  Failry straight forward and you want to use a pressure bleeder (like
the Motive one Mike mentioned). Likeloy no need to even bleed the slave (as
I found out). The real bitch is getting that return helper spring in there.
That's the two piece white plastic one with the fairly thick spring.  I
ended up using big Channellock pliers to compress and strong bailing wire to
keep compressed enough for installation and then snipping the wires after
install.

Anyhow, hope it's the first scenario and not the second -- but just shining
a flashlight up there from underneath will pretty much tell you right away
what the problem is/ isn't.

Good Luck.

Ingo