I've searched and can't find posts that either cover my car's symptoms, and/or posts that show my car's clutch slave cylinder. If anyone can help, that would be greatly appreciated.

103k miles on the car (second owner) and over the past 100 miles it has gone from shifting like butter, to being very difficult to shift into R, 1st or 2nd gear. 3rd and up are notchy, but easier. I start getting clutch engagement around 2-3" up from the floor. I am perplexed that when cold (60F garage temps recently) in the morning it seems to shift ok. But within a couple blocks of the house, gets much more difficult if I'm not rev matching. Seems to drive perfectly fine once in any given gear. No clutch slipping experienced. The shared clutch/brake fluid reservoir is right at the max line. The master cylinder is dry on the outside. The slave cylinder appears to have the rubber boot part inside the transmission casing, which is unlike the videos I've seen where the entire slave cylinder is exposed on the outside where it is mounted. I thus cannot see if there is a leak out that end of the slave cylinder. Since we purchased the car at 100k miles, I've felt like the clutch pedal has been rather firm, but I'm told that is normal for these cars as they age. It does seem like it is just a TAD bit easier to press down the clutch pedal recently, but I might just be imagining that.

I'm going to drain and replace the transmission oil with Genuine BMW Oil For Manual Transmission Mtf-Lt-4 1L - 83222339223 and see if that helps any. I'm reasonably certain the original fluid is in the transmission, so this seems like an easy and inexpensive thing to do.

If this is a slave cylinder, is there any guidance on how to replace and bleed it, given it appears so different from any of the youtube videos I've seen?

Is this possibly something much more serious internal to the tranny?

 

had the same issues with you but at 35000 miles! Replaced transmission fluid, then the slave cylinder. It’s the same method as the R56. Check pelican parts procedure. They have technical articles on their site. That didn’t fix it. Ended up taking it to mini. They found metal shavings in my transmission oil so I replaced clutch and gearbox. I also asked to get a curtesy repair from BMW and ended up paying basically just labor. So instead of $6500 I only paid $1300.

 

Bleeding the slave...2 person job.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...tch-pedal.html. Here is my thread on it.

Basically i used my Motive Power Bleeder and did my brakes first. Then i cracked the slave, somehow got air in there and had the soft pedal, like way soft. So i had the clutch pedal up with valve closed, make sure brake fluid is topped off . Open valve and have helper push it to the floor, once there close the valve. Once the valve is closed have helped pull up on the clutch slowly, try to take about 5 seconds for it to reach the top. Do this 3 or 4 times, then check brake fluid and top it off. you should start to get the pedal back. Repeat this over and over till you feel like your clutch is there. Then, secret tip, pin the clutch to the floor overnight, i used a broom and pushed clutch to floor and braced it with the back of the driver seat. When you go back out in the morning, remove the broom and try to again let the clutch come up as slowly as you can. At this point it should be good, mine felt brand new. You also can bleed your brakes the same way, just make sure you keep the brake fluid topped off.