Sorry Pete, it aint hydraulic and it aint lubrication related.
That piece of shit old ladies' clutch mechanism has a complex over-center spring scheme that was misdesigned to help compensate for the spring pressure of the clutch.
It has a twin coil-within-a-coil gizmo that is depressed by the pedal arm, but the pedal arm doesn't plunge, it arches past and can just roll that spring over. I bought the official Subaru single replacement spring, but couldn't see how it would make a bit of difference.
Sometimes you can adjust your way out of it, by adjusting a bit tighter. Look up by the throttle pedal. You will see a clevis and a threaded rod adjustment. Pull the cotter pin and adjust the jamb nut with a 12mm wrench. You will be backing it out to make the rod longer. While you are in there and have the linkage undone, push the pedal toward the floor and you will feel resistance increasing to a point, then it all goes away and it actually pulls the pedal out of your hand and sucks it to the floor.
My favorite fix may be tacky, but it works. It is silent, cheap, invisible with the kick panel in place, adjustable to personal preference, and immune to abrupt failure. Clamp a worm drive hose clamp around the pedal shaft. Buy a set of four of the teeny-tiny elastic bungee cords. Hook as many of the bungee cords as you like between the hose clamp and whatever you can grab on the underside of the steering column. This fix lasts about two years. The bungees gradually lose tension. I keep a couple of spares up there for fine tuning.
Even when the stock setup is working to specs, it is damn slow on the return. I like the clutch pedal to come back quickly for my next shift.
Clutch Problems
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PJHARJ
Clutch Problems
Well, I looked at the return spring, wait.....that's not a return spring!
If I disconnect the master cylinder and push down on the pedal this goofy
pivot spring thing will hold the pedal to the floor! Mr. Bill's description
is right on, it is nothing more than a 'assist', funny thing is that after I
removed this whole mechanism and added a simple RETURN spring there is much
LESS effort required to depress the pedal! The pedal feel is so different
now that it will take a while to get used to, the feedback is much better,
it doesn't feel so 'numb' anymore.
Thanks for the help
If I disconnect the master cylinder and push down on the pedal this goofy
pivot spring thing will hold the pedal to the floor! Mr. Bill's description
is right on, it is nothing more than a 'assist', funny thing is that after I
removed this whole mechanism and added a simple RETURN spring there is much
LESS effort required to depress the pedal! The pedal feel is so different
now that it will take a while to get used to, the feedback is much better,
it doesn't feel so 'numb' anymore.
Thanks for the help