On Monday my clutch pedal out of nowhere was resistance-free almost all the way down to the floor. The pedal would raise after released, but I had a tough time getting into gear. Looked and the master cylinder was dry. No obvious leaks but I only spent a couple of minutes looking around.

So in the interest of time I had a tranny shop that my uncle is connected with take a look on Tues. They said they couldn't find any leaks. They filled the master cyl back up (apparently didn't bleed the system), and the guy mumbled something about adjustment. I'm guessing they might have adjusted the pedal height a bit. When I drove it home, the release point seemed a tad higher than normal, but the clutch felt OK.

I went to drive to my parents about 30 min later and the pedal was very stiff through all of the travel, and now the release point is literally at the very top limit of pedal travel. Just wondering what plan of action you guys would recommend this weekend. Readjust the pedal height? Have someone pump the clutch while I look to see if I can find a leak? Bleed the system?

 

Your hose to the slave cylinder on the tranny is leaking. A pretty common problem with early 4th gens. I replaced mine myself, just order the part from the dealer.
Tell your Uncle to "disconnect" himself from that tranny shop, they obviously dont' know/didn't look properly for the leak. Bear in mind most tranny shops are "autotragic-obsessed", and only rarely work on 5-spds.

 

Is it *always* that hose? I saw the prob on motorvate.ca. Easy to replace?

Behavior was the same cycle today - started out feeling OK but a little high on the release, then as the drive progressed, release point inched towards the top.

The guy at the shop was bewildered at where the fluid could be going. He actually said "I don't know, maybe it's dumping all of it into the slave cylinder?" After that I was expecting him to say it might be going off to magic fluid limboland.

 

Kinda weird that the release gets higher...I'd thought it'd be lower as the fluid leaks out. Have no fear, it will slowly leak out , and your problem will resurface.

I know when I changed mine, I had a b1tch of a time with mounting the hose on top of the cylinder or something...can't recall. Still it only took me like 1.5hrs.

Problem I have now is that air is seeping in from somewhere, I have to bleed it every month or so. They symptoms are that if I keep the clutch depressed for too long, like waiting to make a left turn, the release point gets really low..makes for a real herky-jerky take off. My mechanic thinks its the master cylinder that need rebuilding, I'll try to do my own troubleshooting.

 

Well, it's still a problem right now with it releasing as far up as possible Feels like the oem mustang clutches I've touched - you just keep going up and up waiting for it to release...

And yeah, I was expecting the release point to go the other way with air in the system.

I suppose I'll search when I get a minute on the hose replacement, but I'm curious what, if anything, should be removed during the process. Looks like the guy on motorvate.ca had the area pretty open - battery & intake past the throttle body is removed, maybe some other things I'm not seeing right away.

 

motorvate.ca is a great site, I think I've encountered every issue he's had with his Max.

I don't think the battery needs to be removed, but the intake plumbing has to be removed, no biggie at all. Check for fluid sweats around the slave cylinder, I think it's just next to the starter motor.

 

I had my clutch hose replaced at the stealership. Their new fix is to attach a solid metal hose to the slave cylinder. That hose leads up and away from the engine. Then the normal rubber hose leads back down. The point of that is to get the clutch hose off the transmission so it won't wear a new leak.

Pretty smart, I thought.

I have also experienced very similar issues to the guy on motorvate.ca. Hope the Nissan engineers are checking this forum every once in a while. There's no better feedback.