I just bought my younger brother a 1994 mazda 626 manual, 117k miles. Nice two owner car, well cared for, reportedly new clutch, bought from family friends. My brother is reproting that at times he will depress the clutch and teh clutch pedal will not come back up. he can pull it up by hand. he also said that he will depress it, try to shift, and it wont go into gear…he pulls over, shuts the car off, and then can get it in gear okay. the fluids were all fine. I am thinking he will likely need a slave or master cylinder…but basically thats as far as my knowledge goes. any thoughts/help/sugestions? thanks all
Yes it probably is a bad clutch master cylinder. If the clutch hydraulic reservoir level is dropping look at the slave cylinder mounted to the bell housing of the transmission and see if it is leaking. Peal back the dust boot to check for fluid.
If there is no fluid loss, the clutch master cylinder is probably bypassing, i.e. the primary cup is leaking. Sometimes the cup lets all the trapped fluid bypass not allowing the clutch to push the pedal back to over center. Other times it bypasses only a little fluid allowing the clutch to partially release but not completely disengage the clutch causing the shifting problem.
Replacing the master cylinder and bleeding the system of air will most likely cure both problems. You might as well replace the slave cylinder as it probably has as much wear as the master and will go shortly thereafter. Doing that will save you from having to bleed the clutch hydraulic system twice.
Good luck on this
thanks for teh quick reply!!! sounds great and I will try it. Bill
While you are at it, check for the peddle returne spring. Many hydrolic clutch sytems have this secondary peddle returne spring that allows the peddle to come back up even when the master or slave fail.
If you replace the master, you might as well do the slave too…When one wears out, the other is never far behind…