Clutch issues during longer drives

[zombie]

Greetings to all. I picked up a fairly low mileage (66k kilometers / 41k miles) a month ago and over the first couple hundred miles I've had some intermittent problems with clutch engagement.

Originally the problem seemed to be that the hydraulic fluid in the clutch reservoir was black (and I mean black).

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I searched on here and saw people recommended to go to DOT4 for the higher boiling point, so I cleaned out the reservoir as best I could with a syringe and a clean rag and then added new fluid. First drive or two, everything seemed okay, but if I go for a drive longer than 20 or 30 minutes, by the end of the drive the clutch will sometimes not engage and/or the pedal will go pretty much right to the floor with no resistance, pumping the pedal seemed to build up pressure eventually. My car throws a LOT of heat so I'm not sure if it's getting too hot at the transmission or what.

I just used generic "mopar" compatible DOT4 fluid, but should I go with higher spec fluid or should I just bite the bullet and have the slave cylinder replaced?

Thanks for any tips or help you folks can provide.

 

[Old School]

You need to bleed the system

 

[Steve M]

Any mods on the car, specifically exhaust mods? Headers for instance?

The clutch hydraulic line runs pretty close to the exhaust by design, so any mods that remove heat shields or bring the primaries closer to that line can cause issues. I could imagine clogged cats causing similar issues.

As @Old School stated, bleeding the system is a must. Simply sucking the reservoir dry and refilling/pumping the pedal (a.k.a. the Ranger method from around 20 years or so ago) doesn't cut it. You have to crawl under the car and get to the bleeder screw that comes out of the bell housing (above the hydraulic feed line). Might want to find someone with skinny arms/small hands to assist, as it isn't the easiest to get to.

If you ever end up needing to replace the clutch, do yourself a favor and install a remote bleeder line...makes the process so much easier.