Clutch problem - urgent!

Here's the deal - driving my car normally, everything is fine. But once I press down on the clutch for longer than a few seconds (3-4 seconds) the clutch pedal starts losing pressure. If I lift off the clutch as it loses pressure, the clutch engages closer and closer to the floor and the pedal is spongy feeling. Eventually, the clutch pedal will just stay on the floor and won't come up until I put my foot behind it and lift.

I thought it could be air bubbles in my clutch fluid, so my friend and I bled the clutch, but when I told another friend he said that they have a machine at Toyota that you hook up to the nipple used to bleed the clutch and it uses a vacuum or something like that to take the fluid out and put in the new fluid. My buddy said that bleeding the clutch the DIY way that I did could actually let in some air into the system. After I bled the clutch, it was marginally better, but the problems still continue now.

So what are these problems a symptom of? We are going to try to bleed the clutch using that vacuum machine, but if that doesn't work I heard it could be my clutch is going out? My car has 162,xxx miles and as far as I know it's on the original clutch. I drive like a grandma everywhere so I'm hoping this isn't the case.

If anyone has any idea what the problem could be, let me know. You guys always come through!

Re: Clutch problem!

Sounds like more of a cylinder issue, either the master or slave cylinder.

Re: Clutch problem!

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that they mentioned that as being a problem also. How could I check either of those?

Re: Clutch problem!

Is there anything leaking in the master cylinder?

Re: Clutch problem!

How could I check the slave and master cylinders?

Re: Clutch problem!

The slave is on the front of the transmission, right by the front motor mount, and just check to see if in, around, or under the boot of the slave has any fluid on it, if it does i would replace it. Especially if you have the plastic bodied slave, those are crap, and i would upgrade to the cast iron slave cylinder which holds up a lot better, especially under higher hp setups.

If it's not the slave, use a solvent/brake cleaner to clean up the area around the master cylinder and drive it around, if there is any fluid there after you cleaned it up, it most likely would be the master cylinder.

Clean both with a brake cleaner and see where the fluid shows up, that would tell you which/both are failing. most likely the slave, those go bad a lot faster than a master would.

One other thing, is i know for our cars they upgraded the master to slave cylinder lines after production, so i would check where the lines meet the master and slave, and see if there is leaking anywhere.

Let me know if you need more help, i have replaced both the master, slave, and the line before.

Re: Clutch problem!

sounds like you have a leak somewhere or a hydraulic problem.

Re: Clutch problem!

hotaccord243 said:

The slave is on the front of the transmission, right by the front motor mount, and just check to see if in, around, or under the boot of the slave has any fluid on it, if it does i would replace it. Especially if you have the plastic bodied slave, those are crap, and i would upgrade to the cast iron slave cylinder which holds up a lot better, especially under higher hp setups.

If it's not the slave, use a solvent/brake cleaner to clean up the area around the master cylinder and drive it around, if there is any fluid there after you cleaned it up, it most likely would be the master cylinder.

Clean both with a brake cleaner and see where the fluid shows up, that would tell you which/both are failing. most likely the slave, those go bad a lot faster than a master would.

One other thing, is i know for our cars they upgraded the master to slave cylinder lines after production, so i would check where the lines meet the master and slave, and see if there is leaking anywhere.

Let me know if you need more help, i have replaced both the master, slave, and the line before.

Click to expand...

Thank you for this help. I checked around the slave cylinder and there seemed to not be anything leaking around that area, but I will check both areas tomorrow again. At first glance when I looked under my hood earlier today there didn't seem to be any obvious leaks at either location, but I will be staying in contact with you for sure. I need this problem resolved as soon as possible before April 10th, because that is when I leave to drive to ATL and I don't want to risk having my clutch fail on me on the way down there or back.

Your probably leaking air into the lines somehow.

like above posts, check for leaks around the master, slave, and line between; find the leak; replace/fix; win.