Something strange happened to my new clutch fluid, I have a theory but would like everyones input Options

[enderswift]

replace the whole car.. hurr hurr. No need to be condescending Bitter. My clutch does not work properly. After the car sits for a while the clutch feels as though there is no fluid in the lines at all.. I have to pump it to build up pressure, which i shouldn't have to do with new parts! This is why i want to know if the color is related to my problem. guess what? it is. observe:

Over the last week my clutch has been getting progressively worse and worse until driving home got really annoying. I decided to tackle the clutch and figure everything out once and for all.

First thing i did was have my brother help me drain all of the black fluid out of the lines and wow did that stuff look nasty. I made sure to check the rubber hose that connects the hard lines for softness and it felt fine. So that ruled out the possibility that the hose was disintegration from the inside. So, i turned my attention to the 3 month old autozone slave cylinder. Heres what i found



see that grey grease-like stuff? thats not supposed to be there, and it is obviously the cause of the dark fluid.

I decided to try something out and cleaned both the piston and the cylinder





Once they were both clean i put them back together and compressed the piston repeatedly for about a minute. Guess what i found when i took it apart again??



more of that metallic paste!! these parts are clearly out of round or just really crappy metal and are causing metal shavings to contaminate the fluid.
I compared the piston on the 'new' slave to my old one and it was night and day. The old piston (with 70k) looked brand new, while my 'new' piston was scored and scratched. Go autozone

After this, I put the original slave back in its place



Now it was time to turn my attention to my 'new' master cylinder to see if that thing was as big a piece of crap as the slave was.
Well i removed it from the firewall and took it apart to check the seals on the inside.



Surprisingly they looked pretty good

I was happy those shavings didn't damage anything. But then i thought to myself, what if its just a matter of time before this thing craps out too?

solution: take piston from the questionable master cylinder, and use it to rebuild the oem toyota unit.

thats exactly what i did and everything fit together very nicely.

just for reference this is what you should look for when inspecting the seals on a master cylinder:



That line is the result of wear, it lets fluid pass and was the cause of my original clutch problems over the summer.

Anyway. Its been several days since I've done all this and the fluid has stayed crystal clear



In the past it would almost immediately turn dark.

I guess the moral of the story is ALWAYS buy from the dealer and dont just ignore something strange as trivial. It WILL come back to bite you.

Im just SOO happy i managed to get the fluid to stay clear without replacing my whole car!!!1!!

on a serious note, I hope this helps someone else who has the same issue.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Oct 17, 2009 - 5:04 PM

[KAOS]

Sorry to ask such a question; but could you take a picture of where the master cylinder sits so I know what to look for when I check to see if its failed?

Thank you;

This post has been edited by KAOS: Oct 20, 2009 - 7:32 PM

[azian_advanced]

it's in the last pic just above your post, beneath the clutch fluid reservoir.

[KAOS]

it's in the last pic just above your post, beneath the clutch fluid reservoir.

Perfect - thank you.

[Bitter]

glad you got it fixed, you made it out to sound like the only nagging problem was the dirty fluid. new parts can be bad, actually its really common for cheap parts store masters and slaves to be bad, even brake masters and wheel cylinders. my suggestion is to get rebuild kit for the original one from the dealer, should cost a fraction of the cost of the slave and that being a cast iron body it should be fine inside.

the metal paste is there because the new cylinder was not properly finished. whether they're all like that or whether that one just skipped a step who knows. the inside of the cylinder should have a smooth finish, not a rough hone like that.