Hello everyone, I'm having a weird issue with my car. Basically, after getting off work one night, I come out to start my car (1996 se 5 speed manual) and the clutch pedal is stuck to the floor. I had the car in neutral and it would still start and idle. Even with the clutch all the way down, it would not shift out of neutral unless I turned the car off. I shifted it into gear and then started it, and the engine would just die in any gear except neutral. I left my car in the parking lot for a few hours and came back later that night, and everything was working fine again, clutch pedal moving the way it's supposed to, it shifted fine, everything was just as before. Anyone know what possibly could be the cause? I am lost at this point

 

Sounds like your clutch slave cylinder is biting the dust. Cheap and easy to replace.

 

I am having exactly this same problem, and my first thought was the clutch slave cylinder. I checked the fluid level in the reservoir and it was full. If the slave cylinder was failing, could the cylinder still be full of fluid?

 

I thought I was my clutch slave cylinder too, but for me all I had to do was bleed the clutch and replace the fluid, because there was air in the fluid lines, causing the clutch to not function properly.

 

There can be air in the lines. Or possibly a leaking line which needs to be replaced.

Should you ever need to replace the line.....
Do yourself a huge favor. Look up the aftermarket one piece clutch line. It bypasses a lot of useless and needless crap Nissan installed. That system requires endless and repetitive bleeding. While the one piece line does not.

 

So yesterday, the car did the same thing again (clutch went to the floor, couldn't shift it). Coincidentally, it was very hot yesterday, and was very hot the last time this happened. My son was driving at the time, and he was able to get the car home by keeping it in second, and being creative when it came to stop signs / traffic lights. We went out a few hours later, and all was good again. The fluid in the reservoir under the hood is full to the correct level, so not losing fluid. Wondering if the next step is to bleed the existing system? I've read that bleeding an old master or slave cylinder (195K miles and counting) can sometimes cause it to fail, so wondering if I should just replace both, and go with the one-piece clutch line while I'm at it. We're in for a spell of pretty warm temperatures here in SoCal, so not wanting to be out in it and have it fail.

Keith