I've looked at the other threads and I am not seeing an answer to my problem...

So I'm driving to work and my clutch pedal goes to the floor. I've read about the clutch slave hydrolic problems and have my cooper towed home. It is about 80+ miles to the nearest dealership so I have to repair her at home. Got the part ordered. Got the bleeder kit I needed. And pull the old part. Put on the new part. Bled the brakes/clutch hydraulic and still have a pedal that stays at the floor.

Anyone have any ideas on what could be wrong. I hope against all hope that it isn't the clutch that went. If it was, wouldn't it just not shift? Would the pedal fall to the floor and not work?

Any advice is appreciated.

 

It is most likely the Master cylinder. They give similar symptoms but if the pedal goes to the floor and you can't "pump it up" or if it does not return when you start it, the spring inside the Master Cylinder has broken, rather than a leak as you diagnosed.

 

well first off... was the origional output cylinder leaking?? was there any signs of fluid in the boot? If so, it may just be a bad bleeding. They have a special tool for bleeding the output cylinders. by just attaching the slave and doing a bleed routine, it doesnt get all the air out of it. sometimes if there is air at the bottom of the slave the fluid does not travel to the bottom and push the air out. The tool actually lets you bleed it on the bench first to push out all the air at the bottom of the slave. You may just have air still, It does happen. They arent the easiest to bleed.

 

There was fluid in the (slave) boot. We are sure there was no more air.

After checking on the master cylinder spring, beacuse of cigarman's comment, it was dangling. hmmmm. aaack. Does anyone have a close-up picture of their spring assembly? I'm looking at the TIS manual and it is not very clear about how it actually should go back on or if it is broken (part of the spring missing).

I appreciate you guys a lot. Little things do help and being so far from a mechanic sucks. So again, thank you for your help!

 

Eek, I hope you didn't break the spring. I think you need to buy the whole pedal assembly to get the spring.

 

Just to keep you all updated...

I couldn't get any farther with the situation and towed (Flatbedded) the coop to a shop in Riverside. After taking a look at it, I'm now going to be a proud owner of a new clutch. ugh.

I told them I wanted to see all the parts at the finish. Thank you to all who gave advice on this one!

 

how many miles? my clutch failed at 44K. BY FAR earliest, I've ever had a clutch fail...

 

Missed this thread.

The Mini slave is one of the trickier to bleed. If anyone hits this thread again in a search and is having the same issues then drop me a PM. It's really quite easy once you figure it out.

 

Ditto onasled's comments. I built my own clutch slave cylinder tool:



You have to have the slave compressed fully while bleeding it. The main reason the slaves fail is because they were compressed off-axis, even slightly, so be VERY careful when doing this. The picture doesn't show it well, but there is a dimple in the middle of the two bolts to keep the slave cylinder shaft on-axis.

I'm not sure why your shop said you needed a new clutch. Did they prove that the slave is actuating but the pressure plate is not responding?

 

Yes, it did need a new clutch. The 96,000+ miles I had on it finally took its toll. The flywheel was actually melted a bit.

Had a good shop do the work, it was a might more expensive than I thought it shoudl be and after careful questioning, found out that they buy their parts from Brecht. hmmm.

It's all back and running again good as new!

Thank you Rye for the extra info on the slave!

 

Ryephile is correct, you must have a special tool of some sort to compress the slave cylinder while it's being bled, the absolute best way is to have a pressure bleeder on hand, any shop with a brake flush kit should have one of them. The standard pump and hold may not work on the slave.

 

I may be just lucky but, twice while bleeding clutch (with pressure bleeder), with my finger I pushed the piston back into the slave.Cracked bleeder and let it flow for couple seconds.... worked fine.