Clutch Problem

[np75]

I have an 87 325e, it developed this clutch problem this week. I was driving along, everything seemed fine, I shifted, the clutch pedal felt a bit weird, I looked down and it had only came about halfway up off the floor. I shifted again, and this time the pedal didn't hardly come up off the floor at all. I pulled over to the side of the road and put the clutch in. It didn't seem to work at all and the engine stalled as I came to a stop. There was no warning one shift it felt fine the next it was having problems. Luckily I was close to home so I limped the last bit in. I got out, had a look under the car, and I could not see any hydraulic fluid leaking. The resevoir still had fluid above the level of the hose outlet to the clutch master. I got back in the car to try the pedal. I pried the pedal up to the normal height. It felt normal, and would go to floor and come back up all the way or nearly all the way. I started the car, put it into gear and let out the clutch. The pedal did not come up off the floor and the clutch would not engage so I stalled it again when I came to a stop. So it seems that as long as I have the trans in neutral the clutch pedal seems to work fine, but as soon as I put it in gear the pedal doesn't want to come up. I did a search on here and came up with some people having similar problems with the reason being that part of the clutch pedal assembly was breaking. This morning I had a look at the clutch pedal assembly and could not see anything broken(although I could not see the section with the spring on it very well). I pushed on the clutch master and it seemed like it was mounted pretty solid. The only thing I could see wrong was that the rubber bellow cover for the clutch master shaft has a hole in it, but I could not see any evidence of leaking hydraulic fluid. So I played with the clutch pedal a bit more and noticed that when I put it into gear and the pedal would not come very far off the floor, it would actually suck itself further down after I took my foot of it. I am a bit stumped. I have had some problems in the past in other cars that I intially thought were hydraulic problems but turned out to be clutch or clutch fork related, so I am a bit reluctant to start replacing hydraulics with out a better idea of what is going on. If anybody has an idea what this could be I would like to hear it.

[jlevie]

What you are describing sounds exactly like a problem with the clutch hydraulics. In the absence of leaks in the lines or at the slave cylinder I'd have to say that the clutch master has failed.

[B0ND]

That definitely sounds like a master cylinder problem. What happens is that the fluid leaks back into the reservoir when you depress the pedal, instead of actuating the slave cylinder. I had by clutch mounting bracket go bad a couple weeks ago, but it didn't have these same symptoms, so I doubt your bracket has ripped.

Good luck replacing the master cylinder, I recommend taking out the drivers seat first, this takes 3 minutes and makes it soo much easier to work down there. By the way I have a brand new master cylinder, never tried putting it in, because the new bracket fixed my problem, FAG oem part and everything. Send me a pm if you haven't already gotten a replacement part and are interested in buying it.