Something strange happened to my new clutch fluid, I have a theory but would like everyones input Options

[enderswift]

Hey everyone heres the backstory:

upon taking my 99gt our of winter storage, I gave it the once over to prepare for the thousands upon thousand of miles i was going to rack up this summer. I changed the oil, checked all the fluids/filters/plugs ect and everything seemed to have held up very well. The car ran like new
From there i drove the car around all day and there were no issues whatsoever (even after several light thrashings on a twisty road in my area). The following day I was coming back from my friends house and my clutch pedal stuck to the floor. uh oh there goes my slave cylinder, or so i thought. It ended up being my clutch master. I changed both. I also bled the whole system about 4 times thoughout the the whole troubleshooting process. In the end the celi swapped gears effortlessly again

on to my question:

the fluid i filled the system with was DOT III CLEAR fluid (as stated on the master cyl cap). now however, this clear fluid has turned a fantastic shade of brown


compare this with my brake master cylinder where i used the same brand around the same time i did my clutch ( i was on a roll)



nice and clear

so why would the fluid in my clutch system turn brown, while the fluid in my brakes stayed looking like new?
at first i thought that it may have been some gunk inside the lines that has since broken up, but that doesnt make sense since i bled the system FOUR times. should be as clean as it gets in there

could it possibly be that the master and slave cylinders are wearing in, thus dirtying up the fluid a bit?

input and opinions are appreciated

-Luke

[enderswift]

replace the whole car.. hurr hurr. No need to be condescending Bitter. My clutch does not work properly. After the car sits for a while the clutch feels as though there is no fluid in the lines at all.. I have to pump it to build up pressure, which i shouldn't have to do with new parts! This is why i want to know if the color is related to my problem. guess what? it is. observe:

Over the last week my clutch has been getting progressively worse and worse until driving home got really annoying. I decided to tackle the clutch and figure everything out once and for all.

First thing i did was have my brother help me drain all of the black fluid out of the lines and wow did that stuff look nasty. I made sure to check the rubber hose that connects the hard lines for softness and it felt fine. So that ruled out the possibility that the hose was disintegration from the inside. So, i turned my attention to the 3 month old autozone slave cylinder. Heres what i found



see that grey grease-like stuff? thats not supposed to be there, and it is obviously the cause of the dark fluid.

I decided to try something out and cleaned both the piston and the cylinder





Once they were both clean i put them back together and compressed the piston repeatedly for about a minute. Guess what i found when i took it apart again??



more of that metallic paste!! these parts are clearly out of round or just really crappy metal and are causing metal shavings to contaminate the fluid.
I compared the piston on the 'new' slave to my old one and it was night and day. The old piston (with 70k) looked brand new, while my 'new' piston was scored and scratched. Go autozone

After this, I put the original slave back in its place



Now it was time to turn my attention to my 'new' master cylinder to see if that thing was as big a piece of crap as the slave was.
Well i removed it from the firewall and took it apart to check the seals on the inside.



Surprisingly they looked pretty good

I was happy those shavings didn't damage anything. But then i thought to myself, what if its just a matter of time before this thing craps out too?

solution: take piston from the questionable master cylinder, and use it to rebuild the oem toyota unit.

thats exactly what i did and everything fit together very nicely.

just for reference this is what you should look for when inspecting the seals on a master cylinder:



That line is the result of wear, it lets fluid pass and was the cause of my original clutch problems over the summer.

Anyway. Its been several days since I've done all this and the fluid has stayed crystal clear



In the past it would almost immediately turn dark.

I guess the moral of the story is ALWAYS buy from the dealer and dont just ignore something strange as trivial. It WILL come back to bite you.

Im just SOO happy i managed to get the fluid to stay clear without replacing my whole car!!!1!!

on a serious note, I hope this helps someone else who has the same issue.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Oct 17, 2009 - 5:04 PM