I posted about this a while back but now I am trying to figure it out again since my motor is out. SUMMARY: My clutch pedal has a slight "pop" feel to it when being depressed (occasionally) and it grinds when going into gear while fast shifting. If you depress the clutch and hold it for a second while slowly shifting, it goes into gear fine. TROUBLESHOOTING: While on a level surface, I put it in 1st and held the clutch down for about 5 minutes. I wanted to see if it would lose pressure and cause the car to creep forward as a result. Nothing ever happened and the car stayed put. I also replaced the slave cylinder and hose. I also thoroughly bled the line in both bleed points. OBSERVATIONS: The master cylinder looks semi-new as it has very little grime on it compared to the surrounding area. It looks as if the previous owner might have replaced it before I bought it. Also, my clutch pedal does not hit the switch regardless of how it is adjusted. It just will not reach it and the pedal has to be slammed to the floor before it will barely make contact. The switch is adjusted all the way out already. Something might possibly be bent. Overall, I have no idea what is causing my problem and I am trying to narrow it down before I replace anything else unnecessarily. The only things I can see it being now are the pedal, pedal bracket, or master cylinder. Any tips are appreciated.
That POP is a dead giveaway. I beleive you will find one of the seals in the master is screwed. You can screw even a new master by over depessing it while bleeding it without power assistance this blows out the front seal. It aso explains the grinding as the clutch is now not being depressed completely. Anyone else have any other ideas?
If it were the master, wouldn't my car have crept forward when doing the test on level ground? It seems as if it would have lost pressure if the seal was bad and would have caused it to slowly act as if it were not pressed at all. This didn't happen though. Maybe my ideas are flawed as I am no clutch guru by any means.
If you really shove the clutch pedal without the car running. It actually forces the fluid push past the seal. I expect that is why its now screwing up. Maybe Eric will see this thread and comment. He has more experience.
Sounds like a pedal pivot issue to me. Check the pivot pin bushes, make sure the return spring is fitted correctly and check the pedal to make sure it isnt bent up the top. My guess is something has been pulled apart under there and not refitted properly, I have seen a few cars where the pivot pin retainer is not fitted properly allowing it to wriggle out and cause a clunky pedal feel. Pushing the clutch without vac assistance will have no negative effects on the system. The vac assist only reduces required input pressure, the pressure inside the master is the same regardless of pedal effort.
Oh, ok. That will kill it because you are forcing the master and or slave into the gunk left at the end of the piston stroke which has a nasty habit of cutting the seals to bits.
