My clutch has always worked fine. I have no idea whether it is the original OEM clutch or not, but the car had 59k when I bought it and has 95k now. It never showed any signs of slipping or misbehaving. Until today.

I got back into my car after parking it, put the clutch to the floor to start, and the car lurched forward. Basically, when I put the clutch pedal to the floor, the car acts like I am only putting it 1/3 of the way down or so.

I am hoping this is a hydraulic problem- anyone encounter this before?

 

Most likely hydraulic problem. You might have a bad slave cylinder, or a leaky hose.

Is there fluid in the clutch resiovoir?

 

The reservoir is still up to MAX, and there are no visible leaks. I guess I will just order slave and master cylinders and cross my fingers...

 

Wait for other opinions before you do this.
Try bleeding the line first.

Observe if the clutch fork moves when someone presses on the clutch. If it does, the slave cylindershould still be good.

 

Well I ended up ordering a new one piece clutch line that goes directly from the master to the slave cylinder. The slave seems to be pushing the fork in nicely, but it is still not disengaging, apparently it is not going far enough.

I have read what a pain in the butt clutch bleeding can be on Nissans, should I just keep bleeding or is there any chance at all there is something mechanically wrong with the clutch itself?

 

So new master, slave, and clutch line. It acts exactly the same. The pedal actually vibrates as I let it in and out in neutral, and even when it is all the way in. I bleed and bleed and bleed and nothing changes.

I really don't know what or why but it seems like I am going to need to replace the clutch.

And let me tell you reading THIS THREAD has filled me with hope and confidence...

!!!!

 

Might as well install the one piece line first. The line will bleed very easily once you are done.

If it still doesn't functon proprely after bleeding, the master cyl might be suspect.

 

This sounds like what happened when my master cyl went kaput. Although I didn't have time to diagnose or work on the car so I took it to my mechanic

 

Well, after replacing the entire hydraulic system and bleeding many different ways, it acts almost exactly the same as before I did all that.

So. It seems likely that it is a pressure plate failure of some sort. I have replaced the clutch on a Subaru and on a Corolla before, is there anything tricky or special about getting the tranny out of these Maximas?

*sigh*

 

Why not get a professional opinion before going to all that work and money?

 

So you've replaced all the external components of the clutch system. For some reason, perhaps because of the convoluted way the bleeding procedure is described
In the FSM, most threads on here describe the bleeding incorrectly. You need to bleed in a way to move the bubbles up and out. So you bleed the slave cylinder first, then the master cylinder.

If all else fails then you probably need to do the whole clutch job. Replace the clutch, throw out bearing, pressure plate, and resurface the flywheel, or perhaps spend a bit extra to buy a new flywheel.

 

I would replace the slave cylinder with an oem part. These ones from your local parrs store are garbage. It takes a lot of pump to bleed the clutch system so be patient.

 

I had gradually worsening clutch issues where the clutch would sometimes be hard to disengage/engage, and occasionally be on the floor when I go to start my car and after ordering and installing new master and slave cylinders from RockAuto, plus one of the two flexible lines closest to the slave cylinder, I drained the old fluid and bled/re-bled at both the lower and upper bleeders and now everything is working fine again.

I have a pedal click that seems due to worn bushings on the spring or elsewhere in the pedal but I think I can live with it since the pedal assembly seems impossible to get to.

I used an old link on the vqpower website for help on understanding how to bleed the lines. That was by far the longest part.

 

It's possible that the master or slave didn't like being drained and bled. Old parts like that sometimes don't like to be disturbed and fail shortly after.

Did you go with a stock clutch? When I've changed between different stages I've always had to adjust the pedal travel to compensate.

As was stated above, the factory lines are a bear to bleed. With the aftermarket braided line it's a lot easier. You can even pull it all out, bench bleed the system and reinstall it all together.