Is it the Clutch Master, Line, Slave... or what?

[dorough]

I have a '93 Ranger 2.3 that my son drives. Last week his clutch went mushy, wouldn't shift, and I found that at some point the fender well wedged the clutch line up against the body and it wore through, creating a leak. So I had the line replaced by my mechanic. He said he thought he bled the line pretty good, but noted that I was going to need a new master cylinder because this one was leaking. Sure enough, fluid where the push rod goes in. So this past weekend, I pulled the new line and the master out, replaced the master, bench bled it well and put it all back in. Worked like a champ. Two days later, my son calls me from the road to tell me the clutch is mushy again and can't shift once again. He said the fluid looked a little low, so he topped it off when he made it home. Said that brought a little pressure back (although I don't know how or why) but this morning when he checked it, sure enough we're back to square one. No obvious leaks anywhere. Slave has grease on it but doesn't appear to be leaking fluid anywhere. I'm just stumped. Any ideas of what I should look for? Feeling kinda clueless.... Thanks, guys.

 

[dorough]

Ideas, anyone?

 

[modelageek]

If the fluid was low it went somewhere. You need to find out where it went. Put some cardboard under the slave, look in the clutch inspection window on the bell housing, feel along the firewall, did you put a new o-ring on the fitting at the slave? etc.

 

[4b316]

Put a new kit in it,it comes with the master,line and slave all together.Put it in and forget it.

 

[dorough]

Here's my update:

After letting the truck sit a day, I went out to look it over and try to gravity bleed it again. To recap, the truck now has a new clutch master cylinder and hydraulic line, but the old slave cylinder. Fluid in the reservoir was ok. I tried pumping the clutch. Got a little movement from the slave, but not enough to shift gears. Started pumping-holding-bleeding. When I opened the bleed screw, I just a little fluid and a good bit of air. Continued repetitions yielded a little compressed air each time, but no fluid. After that, I lost all slave movement when pumping - no moving the clutch at all - and the reservoir level still stayed up pretty good. When pumping, there was a squishy sound but I couldn't tell if it was in the line or in the slave cylinder. I did notice one drop of brake fluid drip from the spiral around the slave. So, do you guys think my slave cylinder has bit the dust? If so, how hard is this thing to replace on my own? I've done a lot of repairs on my own, but I've never dropped a transmission before. I sure would love not to have to pay another big repair bill.

 

[modelageek]

If the slave is leaking the only remedy is to drop the tranny. If the slave is fine I would bench bleed the MC as per the precision clutch videos on you tube.

 

[4b316]

The only other thing to try before dropping the trans is a brake bleeder.Hook it up and push the fluid back up the line to the master.Pretty cheap tool at HF or see if you can borrow one at Advance

 

[dorough]

Any other thoughts / ideas before I start ripping this this apart? Thanks for the input so far!

 

[HAPPY+RANGER+GUY]

Sometimes a new master cyl can cause the old slave to fail. Many recommend changing both these components if aging and one fails. Did you get the job done?

 

[ltbenji]

My clutch line popped out of the slave cylinder on day on the side of the road and I was told the way to bleed those systems is to pump the crap out of them.

So I removed the cap and 70-100 pumps later the pressure had come back to the system.