Clutch Slave cylinder problem???

[John Berger]

Clutch Slave cylinder problem??? Or is my clutch going south?

I made it home last night from a good weekend of racing at Bristol. I was in Asheville, NC and had to stop at a light. As I approached the light I dropped the transmission into neutral and coasted to a stop. Light turns green, I go to put the truck in first and it won't go into gear I was going up a hill and in the outside lane and couldn't go anywhere. I popped the hood and checked the clutch reservoir fluid level and inspected for leaks. None. I shut the truck down popped it into gear and got going. I was fortunate in that I didn't have to come to another stop for quite awhile, but it did it to me one more time during a downshift from 5th to 4th gear. After that, I didn't have a problem, but I figure I don't want to drive all the way back home with the potential for the same type of problem. To many hills, too hot and the travel trailer all led me to a dealer in Kingsport, Tennessee and a new clutch slave/master cylinder, which by the way was not under warranty. No more problems until last night when I was out running errands after we got home. The truck did not want to go into gear. It also seems as though it doesn't want to go into first gear once in awhile (this morning). It's hard to believe that I've got another bad clutch slave/master cylinder. I'm not sure now that the OEM part was bad. I'm thinking that this could be internal. What's the verdict? All you clutch gurus, lend me a hand here. TIA



John



P. S. I did not experience any slipping whatsoever and I pulled some pretty good grades (6-9%). My differential temps were running between 230-235 degrees with a slight increase on the big grades. I changed out the gear lube last month. Maybe that's the problem.

 

[Texas Diesel]

Off topic

John, did your fastcooler fit ok? Mine was machined wrong, waiting for a replacement now.

 

[John Berger]

Not yet

I haven't had the time. The cooler came the day before my son's wedding and then we went to Bristol three days after that. I'm going to change the gear lube back to Amsoil and I'll put it on at that time. I wish I had been able to get it installed before this trip so I could monitor the temperatures.

 

[Morphious]

I had the same thing happen to me on my way out to north carolina last week. I was in Ark. during the heat of the day going through their 140 miles of road construction and noticed that I was having trouble down shifting. I was able to shift without the clutch until littlerock and stopped at a truck stop. I let the truck sit for half an hour and then proceeded to check it out. I could find no leaks or lack of fluid. I started the truck in nuetral and could not get it in gear. Due to the fact that I had to have my kids in NC the next day, I killed the truck, put it in reverse and started it with the clutch not working. I then slammed it into first and took off, probably not the best thing in the world to do, but I believe what had happened was the throwout bearing had either seized on the input shaft or something like that and my basically giving it a good kick freed the wraskal. The clutch and TOB are relatively new( installed this spring) and only have around 60k on them. After that I have felt it have a hard time once or twice, so I don't believe it is the slave cylinder.



Morph.