Hello everyone,

Last night when I was driving home from a friends, I had troubles changing gears.

I was in first when I got to the end of his alley, and then had a hard time taking it out of first to go in to second, like the clutch wasn't in all the way. I got to a main road and it was difficult to shift up without rev-matching, and when I had to stop and put it in neutral it was hard to take it out of gear and put it back in, so I had to turn off the engine to do so.

(I guess I was like a hybrid car that stops the engine when you are stopped )

When I did put it in first then started the car up again, with the clutch all the way down, the car would be moving forward slightly, even on a slight uphill gradient, which makes me think the clutch isn't disengaging all the way.

It did this for about 10 minutes, and then it started working perfectly fine again after that.

I got home and checked the master cylinder and the slave cylinder, no leaks in the engine compartment, but on the inside there was what looked like an old trail.

I went for another test drive today and everything was fine, and I took some pictures as well

Inside shot of the Master Cylinder, don't mind the smudge at the bottom, I touched the trail to see if it was fresh, it wasn't


Another inside shot


Engine bay side of the master cylinder seems fine


Slave cylinder seems fine, don't mind the water drops at the bottom, it snowed a foot last night...


Do you think the master cylinder is on it's way out?

If so should I replace it with OEM or aftermarket (rockauto has an evo8/4g94 [they are the same part] for $16[$40 shipped])

Any other actions I should take?

Edit: the history of what clutches were used were OEM, and then Spec Stage2 (was in there when i bought the car until 120000 km) and then oem (until 186000) and then Clutch Masters Stage 1 (to present 199000 km)

 

Did you try peeling the boot back off the slave? It should be dry and no fluid underneath the boot mine wasn't leaking out the boot so it didn't seem that the slave was bad but once I peeled it back fluid poured out..

 

check the range of motion of the slave...

 

Props to you. Peeled the boot back and it all came out. Good thing I was going to order a slave as well.




How does one do that?/what is the supposed proper range of motion?

 

there's no specification, but you would know if it wasn't pushing out all the way...but because we know it's leaking, it probably wouldn't travel much...

 

Happend to me that's how I know hahaha I feel like a baus first person I helped out!

 

Do yourself a huge favor and order an Evo 8/9 clutch master cylinder. The stock RA one is trash and will at some point bite you in the ***.

 

mine's still holding up...my clutch has been in for like 40,000km...

 

What's the difference between the two bore size? Or just the way it is built?

 

as far as I know, the bores are the same at 5/8", but if you look at my third pic, the evo 8 one doesn't have the black plate thing on the side, so less parts/places for it to leak from. I don't know what the purpose of that black plate thing is.

The stock ralliart one also has a bleeder at the end (maybe has something to do with that plate?) and the evo8 one doesnt. when I take it out I will dissect the old one and figure out what that's for. As far as I know in terms of the overall hydraulics, the only difference between the ralliart and the 2.0L lancers (the 2.0L master is the same as the evo) is that the ralliart has the orifice valve and the 2.0L and evo8 don't.

 

O ok thank you for explaining it to me

 

i have this exact same problem right now but i still drive it around everyday just cos i can lol. is that bad? would i ruin my transmission if my clutch wasn't working properly? :S

 

yeah... it wears the synchros.... so that's about a $700 job i think..... less if you can fix it yourself. you can pay $60 now to get a new master and slave, or you can spend $760 later... lol

 

ohh ****..arite i'll get to that asap

 

just an update, I replaced both the clutch master cylinder and clutch slave cylinder and had a custom made stainless steel clutch line made.

It worked perfectly for 4 weeks until yesterday, couldn't disengage the clutch completely.

I made it home then immediately bled the clutch, then i turned the clutch adjustment out all the way and bled it again, still wouldn't disengage.

Then I had to go somewhere and had to just use it as is and turn the engine off to put it in gear from a stop. after a few minutes of grinding gears and rev matching all of the sudden it worked perfectly again.

So my suspicion is that the clutch is faulty some how....

Anyone ever had problems with a Clutchmaster FX100 clutch?

I've only put 15000 km on it, and suspect that a spring on the hub is broken, or the pressure plate is weird some how... Right when I put it in i noticed that the clutch pedal feel is softer than stock...

I'll run with it till it acts up again, then I will throw in the stock clutch laying around and see if that fixes things...