5spd GT clutch issue., strange symtom... Options

[enderswift]

Hey everyone, today was a great day as it was the first time i got to drive the celi since i put her away for school last august. its a 99 stick shift GT and as you can imagine it was a fantastic day until i was 15 minutes from home. For some reason at low revs (aka 1st and reverse), my clutch pedal does not want to spring back. Its stuck hugging the floorboard. I have to pull it back with my foot. After that it works fine though, i shift without problems and the car runs great. Its late so I havent checked anything yet but my guess its that i have low fluid, air in the lines, or a combination of the two. The problem with this theory is that i've put close to 150 miles on the car in one day only to develop this problem during the last 5 miles? Id imagine that air in the lines would be more gradual... Return spring maybe? But then why would it only happen in first and reverse?

can someone tell me if im on the right track or point me in the right direction please?

BTW, this is a 99 with only 71 K on it so i doubt its my Clutch MC and i dont see any leaks



This post has been edited by enderswift: May 20, 2009 - 12:40 AM

[enderswift]

for those who care:

WOW TODAY SUCKED

So today was the day my friends from college decided to have our BBQ and i said id pick two of them up from union station in chicago. Well, my clutch issue was getting so bad that it was a joke trying to get around. It was time for that new slave cylinder. I figured i could get it installed before I had to pick them up around noon. I checked my local toyota dealer and they had to order; and the advance auto where i used to work had to order too..Well i bit the bullet and bought an autozone dealy. It was a relatively easy install despite the searing hot engine ( i had no time to let it cool down) and i was impressed with the quality of the part. In any case i was cutting it close so i hit the road and jumped onto 290. BIG MISTAKE. First off, the slave cylinder wasn't the issue, it was the master cylinder (too bad for me the clutch worked great until about halfway there) . So there i was, stuck on the freeway with a semi dead clutch pedal for about 15 miles. Stop and go traffic and a nightmare to say the least. And the driving i had to do once i reached the city is something i hope to forget... In any case i needed a new master cylinder and drove 50 miles, FIFTY MILES (in total) to get it. I was late to the bbq because i stopped at a bunch of auto parts stores on my way to my friends house. I also ended up having to leave and come back to drive out to the closest hub store. Ofcourse the clutch was ruining my life the whole way and i had to yank it into neutral a few times... I felt like crap each time ..In any case I finally got the bastard part and decided to save the install for later. (I missed alot of the get together anyway, so why not try to at least enjoy the little bit that was left?) They saved the legendary bacon wrapped shrimp for me When everyone was getting ready to leave I devised a plan to drive my two friends back to union without incurring any more of my clutches' wrath. It worked for the most part, and driving was waaay easier than before. Basically i would try to depress the clutch as little as possible because any more than 2 seconds of pressure would stick the pedal to the floor(it was not easy in some of the traffic situations downtown, but managable O.o). Once i finally got home, I called my buddy over and he helped with the bleeding portion of the cylinder install. Surprisingly, the master was easier to replace than the slave was despite those two really annoying bolts that hold it to the firewall. Maybe because there wasn't a piping hot radiator and heat shield to ruin my day this time.

After everything was nice and buttoned up, i took the celi for a drive. OMG did it shift nice! This whole time i thought that it was the celica's nature to be hard to drive smoothly, but now i don't even have to try. It just comes naturally and i love it The car runs great and the improvement in ride quality sort of made up for my crappy day.

I guess the master cylinder has been going out very very slowly since before i got the car, and i never realized anything was wrong. It just took a bit more finesse to drive smoothly until the day i took it out of storage when it finally gave out.

long long story short, thanks for everyones input.