no clutch

[George Selby]

At 10:31 PM 6/27/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Upon inspection, I found no obvious leaks,
>there was plenty of fluid in the system, and the pedal, when pressed,
>would stay in whatever position it was in.  I tried bleeding the
>system, got some old, nasty looking fluid out, and found that when
>the bleeder screw was opened, the pedal would pull itself to the
>floor.  That's weird.

I have never seen a clutch slave fail and leak fluid.  For some strange 
reason (maybe high initial pressure of pushing clutch in, rather than the 
more linear brake pressure increase) the fluid always seems to leak 
internally (slip past seals.) Now that I think about it, this may be the 
reason that the clutch components are much more likely to have an 
unsuccessful rebuild (In fact, I have never had a clutch master or slave 
successfully rebuilt.)

Based on the statement about the pedal slowly falling to floor with bleeder 
screw open, I would check the line that feeds the master cylinder.  If the 
pedal is up, fluid should pass from the reservoir thru the master to the 
slave.  If that is not a problem, try replacing the slave, as it sounds 
like the master has a good seal (or else air would pass through the master 
seal and the pedal would not fall.

Possible reason master not drawing fluid from reservoir:  Pedal 
misadjusted.  There is an adjustment bolt that attaches the pedal to the 
master.  If the piston in the master does not completely return to rest 
(rear) when the pedal is not being depressed, then the port that opens to 
the reservoir will not open.

George Selby
70 F-100 Ranger XLT 400 C6
78 F-150 4x4 400 4 spd
83 Audi Coupe GT
86 Nissan 300ZX
92 Subaru Legacy Wagon AWD
gselby4x4 at earthlink.net