2stroke1971

1985 Rx7, 1.1 5 speed , 220,000 miles....

My son had been telling me about his clutch pedal feeling odd a week ago, but it was not slipping. Today on the way home, it stated doing something else.

Now, the pedal will go to the floor with a "little" resistance and then stay. You can pull the pedal back with your foot under it. The thing is not slipping, its the other way that is to say it wont disengage. He mentioned a weird noise at times today as well when it was intermittently not working....now its just not working all the time.

I read some posts about hydraulic problems, sounds like thats whats going on huh?
Guess I should have known when I could not find a clutch cable listed for this car.

Guess its not as bad as a bad clutch?!?!?

Kaaarl12a

iTrader: (6)

Its either the clutch master cylinder or the clutch slave cylinder, Just look for leaks around the clutch master cylinder on the fire wall next to the brake master cylinder(the big one). or follow that hose down to the slave cylinder, they are easy to change out on these cars and i dont belive they are expensive at all.

andernamen

iTrader: (2)

Been through this many times. Replace or rebuild both the slave and master cylinders. Easy to do and not too expensive.

13x

leaking clutch master tends to leak inside the car so unless you get under the dash you won't see it

Rotary-MG

iTrader: (1)

I have the same car. Since you're going to have to replace one anyways, just get both the slave and master and do them both at the same time. The units are relatively cheap, and this is an easy fix with just some hand tools. Don't bother rebuilding the units you have. Rebuilding them means they won't last long.

With that many miles on the car, these things can be expected.

2stroke1971

we tried to bleed it, very little fluid moving through at all. The master cylinder was full of fluid, not low at all. I get that if the parts are bad, then maybe we couldnt bleed it because no pressure developing......
I am going to try to bleed it with some vacuum tomorrow to see if we can get it going short term....
No signs of leaking on the slave cylinder, I will have to climb under and see if the master is leaking in the car, but again, the fluid was not low so I dont think its lost any. The bleeder screw was not the tightest in the world, wonder if it could have sucked air.....

I will say this as well, the line from the master to the slave was obviously something the previous owner replaced recently and the slave itself also looks pretty new. The master looks to be original however.

I will dig into it some more tomorrow, thanks all!

13x

then perhaps the bore is worn and is bypassing inside the clutch master ....

Rotary-MG

iTrader: (1)

There was no outward leaking of fluid when my master went out, and it was always full of fluid as well. The inner seal was gone and couldn't build pressure.

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

Yep, they can leak internally with no loss of fluid externally.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i'd start with just the master if the slave is new..

master is easy if you use a 1/4" drive ratchet, a 3/8" is too big, and a wrench wrench fits but you go one flat at a time, so it takes FOREVER

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

A ratchet wrench works good for this.

One problem I had with my last clutch master was that the threads on the studs did not go all the way down and it would not tightern against the firewall very well. I had to use some washers to make up the space to get it tight.

Also, dont tighten it too much. The portion that holds the studs can break.

2stroke1971

yeah, its as you've all said, naturally.

I was hoping to get it limping for now, but it was not to be. We had it bleeding with the other end in a jar of fluid and we were able to move fluid through it...but it wont make enough pressure to actuate the clutch. No outward leaking, so its just not making pressure.

I looked hard at the slave again, and the boot looks supple, its definitely newer than the master, and the line from master to slave looks brand new almost. (we;ve only had the car for about 6 months). I would wager that when the previous owner put the slave in, the line broke and he put a new line on it as well so I suppose we will take a chance and start with a new master. It will be next week before I can order the parts (its a bad week) but I will update this thread with the results for posterity's sake.

Thanks again all!
Neil

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

Wasn't as bad as mine!

dougingraham

I've replaced the masters on both of my FB's and in both cases the new master had studs without enough threaded bolt. So as you say could could not tighten it down. My solution was to remove the studs from the original cylinder and reuse them. I didn't have much trouble removing them from ether old or new cylinder.

DreamInRotary

iTrader: (49)

Well, this has been covered pretty well already. I'd probably go with a new hose to connect the two units as well - just as a precautionary measure and then you'd have nothing left to replace...besides a clutch that is.

Adam12A

That's what mine looked like. Cheap and easy fix

74RX4

iTrader: (10)

FWIW here are some pictures and comments on replacing clutch hydraulics.
Clutch Hydraulics

2stroke1971

Done. Like most of the things we wind up needing for this little car, the big box stores are not much help. The best SOME of them could do was order the parts, and I dont mean the next day type of thing. I will put it this way, the going rate for the clutch master was about 60 bucks and a week to come in. So I went to rock auto...we got the master, the slave (just in case) AND a set of rear brake shoes for that much. Had it in 4 days.

I put only the master on since the slave looked fresh. That did it of course. CLutch has a totally different feel, lots more action in the pedal. The old master looked alot like the pics above, crusty and rusty on the back side.

I did the back brakes and while I was in there I saw some scary looking rust in the wheel well and around the stabilizer mounts. Damn shame. I mean, this car was never an investment and we paid very little for it and it's making a totally groovy first car for my son....I was hoping there would be something left of it when he got tired of driving it ( I told him I will give him the old "dad" trade in allowance for it....) but I fear it may disolve into nothing soon.

andernamen

iTrader: (2)

Get on that rust asap. The wheel wells and bins behind the seats are prone to rust. Not too difficult to fix. Search for bin rust repair.