DreamCatcher

Hello all!

While driving back today, I suddenly lost the strong clutch feeling- it took very little effort to push down on the clutch, and the shift lever felt stiff, and it was hard to put the car into gears.

After making it home, I checked the clutch fluid and there was nothing in it! Totally dry.

I understand that basic brake fluid is what is used for the fluid- please correct me if I am wrong.

Also, can I just add fluid to the reservoir and would that solve the problem? I do know that there has to be a leak for the fluid to drain out, but will I be able to drive the vehicle if I add fluid- without burning my clutch plate?

Thanks a lot!

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

Dot 3 brake fluid is clutch fluid- yes. Adding fluid will not solve your leaking problem, no. It is a hydraulic system which means pressure...not like a leaking tranny or motor where you "could" just keep topping it off.

I dont know what your talking about as far as burning your clutch plate...

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

you are going to need to bleed your system but more importantly you are going to have to find the source of the leak otherwise this will happen again.

common sources of leakage are the master cylinder, slave cylinder and the attachment points of the rubber clutch line.

You wont burn up your clutch you will have a hard time getting into and out of gears which is very very hard on your syncros.

DreamCatcher

Thanks a lot for the response guys!

Yes, I agree that "topping" off the fluid is not really a fix. But I was wondering if I could top it off enough to make the drive to a mechanic without screwing up my transmission.... Can I do that?

Also, I thought that if I shift gears without fully engaging the clutch, it will burn up the plate quickly- I am a dumb@ss, so I don't really know if it is true or not.

Thanks again.

Curt Deiner

iTrader: (1)

Refill the reservoir, bleed the clutch (put a length of clear hose on the slave bleed nipple, have someone push the clutch pedal to the floor and hold, open the slave bleed nipple to expell air/old fluid, when it stops coming out, close the nipple and then let the pedal up. Keep the reservoir topped off and repeat til no more air/old fluid comes out.) find the leak.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

As far as filling it up just to drive long enough to take to a mechanic, that might work if the leak is small. Ultimately its up to you to call the shots though. When you top it off (if you dont bleed it) its likely going to have air in the lines and probably crappy pedal feel but if your drive is short to the mechanic it might not be a big deal.

I'm glad I have the single SS line going from my master cylinder to slave, takes alot of the guess work out haha.

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

having no clutch pressure means that your clutch wont disengage completely not that it wont engage completely so the wear will be on your tranny not your clutch system.

I wrote up a quick how to for someone a few days ago on how to bleed your clutch system. let me see if if can find it and copy it here for you. Honestly if you can bleed your system you can replace the faulty part. bleeding the system is pretty easy bur
IMO is the toughest part.

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

you are going to need some 1/4" tubing a clear jar, some dot3 or dot4 brake fluid and preferably a friend to help. (although you can do it alone)

You are going to want to attach the 1/4'' tubing to the bleeder screw on the slave cylinder which is on the front side of the transmission. (you need to take the snorkel part of the intake off to get to it from above) There is also a bleeder screw right by the driver side strut mount that i almost forgot about. I think you can do them both at once but i just did them one at at time doing the one up by the strut tower first.


Put the end of the tubing into the clear jar and out some brake fluid in the jar so the end of the tube is submerged.

Now use an open ended wrench to open the bleeder screw i think it is an 8mm or 10mm (about 1 full turn should be enough, you just want the fluid to be able to flow out of it)

make sure your tube is still submerged since the twisting probably moved the line.

now what you want to do is start pumping the pedal until there are no longer air bubbles coming from the tube in the jar. While doing this you want to keep adding fluid to the clutch reservoir and at least keeping it above the minimum level otherwise you will be introducing more air into the line.

The service manual says to pump it and while the pedal is depressed have someone close the screw then release the pedal and repeat until there is no longer air in the system but this is not possible with one person. As long as the tubing is submerged in fluid it will keep it from pulling air back into the system. I have only ever done this alone without doing the tightening and loosening procedure and have never had a problem.

once there are no longer bubbles tighten the bleeder screw back down and you should be good to go.

Hope that all made sense

good luck!

curiosul

It happened to me once.
THEORETICALLY you have to bleed the lines but I couldn't do it immediately so I had to drive it like this for a while. You'll have to pump it a few times before each use and you'll have to do this a few times before the pedal feels (somewhat) normal. After you do this, when you get to bleed it, you'll notice that the liquid is almost white (foam). Apparently, the surface tension in it makes the air less elastic.
As for the cause, I'm 90% percent sure it's the rubber hose close to the gearbox. That's where I have the leak and that's where friend of mine (he has an I30) has it.
BUT
It order to get to it you'll have to take out almost all the plastic tubing that goes under the air filter. You'll have to do the same thing in order to bleed the system.
My recommendation is to make sure where the problem is and then think about bleeding.
Good luck!

DreamCatcher

I sincerely appreciate all of your help! It definitely feels better to get an understanding of wtf went wrong with my Maxima.

Feldman, I appreciate the effort of walking through the bleeding process. I will give it a try ASAP!

For now, I think I will top off the reservoir with fluid... it just feels weird because I had checked a month ago, and the thing was all full! Now I can almost gather saw dust from it!!

Thanks again.

MaximaPimpin

iTrader: (3)

I just fixed that problem on mines, I had to refill the fluid every few days or so until I had it taken care of, I ended up changing the slave, and master cylinder and it didn't solve it, I ended up finding out it was the clutch line and upgraded it to a SS clutch line and it has been great ever since.

T Keck

i had this problem not to long ago, i found the leak, filled up the reservoir, bled the system, and ordered a replacement line. When the new line got to my house the reservoir was still full so i didn't put the new line on, that was about 3 months ago and its still full and working fine.

crash_landing

iTrader: (1)

my 05 had a clutch leak for months until I got tired of it. Was the stupid hose the attaches to the slave cylinder, started leaking right near where it bolts to cylinder, replaced the slave unit while I was there just bc it showed some very slight pitting.

Just look for fluid. typically if its the master either it will end up in the engine bay by cylinder or your pedal will start to be slippery... if your lucky you might have a bleeder up top on the drivers side part of the bay, my 95se cali model did, made bleeding easy. if you have a leak, just never let it go dry until you fix it....

nupemaxima

iTrader: (2)

had this problem on my max for about a year. But I had no signs of a leak...even though we all know it had to go somewhere. I just made sure to top it off before it was empty. It sucks doing it but it worked until i got the money to fix the problem. you will be ok driving around for a little while. but I wouldn't make it a habbit. it could very well lead to a much bigger problem.

Phaedrus220

iTrader: (4)

A common problem with high mileage 4th gens is the slave cylinder & attached hose length going bad. I recall it took forever for my friend and I to bleed the clutch and get the full pressure back after replacing, so be patient.
Once you size up the system and locate everything, it's not a terribly hard job to do; I was forced to fix this in an apt. complex parking lot and it only took a few hours.

DreamCatcher

Well, after a busy week at school, I finally got around to getting DOT3 and filling up the reservoir, to see if I can regain pressure in the pedal. I "pumped" the pedal several times, but I didn't notice any difference, and the fluid stayed at the same level as I had put in.

Any suggestions on what I could be doing wrong?

Now I cannot even shift the gear from neutral (I guess I can if I use excessive force). I cannot put it in reverse.

I live in an apartment, so I am tight on a place to work on the car. And being a newbie doesn't help either, because I was not able to locate the bleed port. (to be very honest, I don't even know how it looks. I have bled motorcycle brakes, so I was thinking of looking for a bleed port that looks like that)

I just wanted to have enough pedal engagement so that I could drive the car to a mechanic without doing damage to my syncros.

Feldman gave out a very nice walkthrough on the bleeding process, but I am not confident enough to handle it!

Thanks for all of your help folks..


The Maxima is a 4th gen, 1999 SE, 160k.

nupemaxima

iTrader: (2)

keep pumping your clutch. Its gonna take a while for the pressure to come back.

DreamCatcher

I kept pumping for over 5-10minutes, but didn't notice a change. How long does it usually take to notice a change?

DreamCatcher

Well, thanks a lot guys, for you help. One of the hydraulic hoses had to be replaced. So that was done and the fluid was rebled.

However, there is one very weird problem. The clutch works great when driving in the city, but once I hit highways, I lose all the pressure in the clutch again! But again, once I get off the highway into city roads at slow speeds, the clutch starts working again beautifully.

The clutch fluid reservoir is full, and doesn't seem to be losing any fluid.

Can anyone tell me what could be messed up here? Is it the speed? The heat? Not pressing the clutch quite often while the engine is running?


Thanks for all your help!

DreamCatcher

Anyone?

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

do you have a soft pedal when you very first get into your car? the only thing i can think of is there is still air in the system and you are maintaining pressure in the system because you are pumping it a bunch while driving in the city. When you are on the freeway you don't press the pedal very much and and you are losing pressure...

Did you replace the part and do the bleeding yourself or did a shop do it?

imCaKeBoY

i had the same problem i went under my car and looked were the oil spots and follow to the leak

DreamCatcher

That's a good guess. I had asked a shop to do the replacing and bleeding. I have taken the car back to them (via city roads ). They said that they didn't use a machine to "Power bleed" the clutch system, so they will give that a try now.

Do you think a "power bleed" would make a difference as compared to a... dare I say... "regular bleed"?

The fluid reservoir hasn't lost anything, so I am guessing the leak has been fixed.

Thanks.

Feldman

iTrader: (1)

i am assuming that by "power bleed" they have some sort of pump that sucks the fluid through instead of having to have someone pump the pedal. What probably happened is the person "power bleeding" the system let the fluid level get too low while bleeding it, introducing a little bit of air into the system again...

If you aren't losing fluid then the leak is probably taken care of and all it needs is a re-bleed hopefully

DreamCatcher

Well, the shop re-bled the system, and I drove it back from the freeway- seemed to have worked, but Im not closing the case yet! I'll probably wait for a few days to see if it returns.

The people at the shop said that if the problem returns, I need a new clutch ... if there is a problem with the clutch, shouldn't it show up while city driving as well?