WTF is wrong with my clutch!?!?

[kimokalihi]

Ever since I've had my car (91 SS) the clutch pedal has no function whatsoever. The pedal does not move the plunger. If you push the pedal in it drops (snaps rather, spring loaded like a compound bow) and if you pull on it it snaps right back up all the way to the top. You can't have the pedal in the middle anywhere, it's either up or down. I removed my clutch damper and bypassed it. That didn't change anything. I just bled the clutch tonight and that didn't make a bit of difference. Put damn near a whole quart of brake fluid through it. No bubbles are coming out. I tried pumping the pedal by hand while bleeding it. I tried pressure bleeding it with the power bleeder.

Nothing makes any difference. It's as if the pedal isn't hooked up to anything but the spring under the dash. But I looked under there and it's hooked up to that rod that rotates and pushes/pulls the other rod that goes into the back of the master cylinder.

What else can it be? I'm losing my mind with this shit. Just wasted a whole bottle of ATE Super Blue racing DOT4 fluid. That stuff isn't cheap either.

[SiCkSTi04]

Could it be a bad slave cylinder or even clutch master cylinder?

[kimokalihi]

I have no idea. Wouldn't know how to test that.

[94.GT.Wagon]

So I guess since you bled the system then that must mean that pushing the clutch pedal does have a least some affect on the hydraulic system, at least enough to push fluid out of the bleeder, correct? If so, the next thing I'd do is to have a friend/helper push the clutch pedal while you look under the hood to see if pushing the clutch pedal actually makes the rod extend out of the slave cylinder and move the clutch fork like it should. If it does not, then I'd suspect the master cylinder is shot. If the problem were the slave cylinder then it would be leaking fluid.

[kimokalihi]

Nope, pushing the pedal does nothing. I bled it with a power bleeder.

[dscoobydoo]

When I first picked up the winestone car, the original owner had the flywheel resurfaced to minimum specs.
After driving it here, the clutch would barely engage.
It did the same thing you talk about, the pedal would just pop down and stay unless I manually pulled it back up.

[SLODRIVE]

I originally bled my clutch with a power bleeder....and had no pedal. After that I bled it manually, with a friend working the pedal (and pulling it back up until it worked better). That worked a lot better, then I removed the dampener and I have all the clutch pedal I want, even with 300,000 mile parts.

[kimokalihi]

Do you guys know what size bleeder screw it takes? I'd like to buy a speed bleeder and that would allow me to easily manually bleed it myself. I did the brakes on my gf's civic after installing speed bleeders and it was a breeze and the brakes worked great after that.

[Legacy777]

It really sounds like either the clutch MC or slave cylinder is bad. That or you have a big air pocket stuck in the clutch MC. But if you used a power bleeder, I think it would be less likely for an air bubble to be in the MC

[AWD_addict]

Yeah, if the pedal is just springing between top and bottom of it's range then you have air bubbles or a leak in the hydraulic circuit.

[SiCkSTi04]

My clutch line ended up leaking and pedal dropping to the floor on the way from work. All my fluid is gone, could I use a STi clutch cable if its long enough to bypass the clutch damper??