So I got into my R53 one morning and found the clutch was no longer fully disengaging. It got really cold that night but it was working fine yesterday. I can put it in reverse with a grinding lurch, and then it will move even with the clutch pedal pushed all the way down, or I can hold the stick in the first gear position to sort of roll forward, but not actually get it into gear.

I had to replace the clutch slave cylinder when I bought the car because it was leaking. Now I see there's fluid leaking around the slave cylinder again, but instead of being the usual failure point at the piston, it's coming out the top where the line connects. I tried replacing it again with a new slave cylinder, no luck, same problem (I did not forget the little rubber grommet either). Sometimes when the car's been sitting overnight I can build pressure and shift just fine, but after going back and forth in the driveway a few times I start losing fluid and pressure. There seemed to be clutch pressure even when I couldn't shift before but now losing shifting seems to be accompanied by a loss of pedal pressure and visible fluid leak.

I've heard that trouble shifting is often because the clutch throwout bearing needs to be replaced. However the loss of brake fluid in the clutch line gives me pause. Could this be happening because the throwout bearing is seized and I'm just building too much pressure in the clutch, or is my actual problem a bad seal around the brake line that's leaking fluid? I'd hate to do a whole clutch job just to find that all I needed was a brake fluid line. On the other hand, the connector looks fine and I'm using a new slave cylinder. Also, even the old slave cylinder that was leaking didn't lose pressure fast enough to notice when driving, it just needed more fluid regularly.