Clutch and 1st

I have a new slave with only 6k on it. Yet I've noticed the clutch fluid is dark already. So I'm planning routine bleeds of the system, to keep the fluid clean fluid, hopefully prolonging the slave's life.

Doug

When a clutch slave starts to go, you can extend its usefulness a bit by pumping it up each time you need first gear from neutral. Might get you home some night.

How does the clutch feel when this happens? Is it softer or is the engagement point lower than usual? In my experience, one of these symptoms will also show up with a failing slave or master cylinder. Speaking of the master cylinder, it's essentially the same peice of equipment (a little different configuration) as the slave and now has 35K more than your old slave cylinder had on it when it was replaced. If any of those symptoms are showing up, I'd suspect the master cylinder.

Could be the tranny too. Does it happen just when it's cold? Could it be low on fluid?

HTH, John McClary ('94 Miata) jsgmcclary at cox dot net

John,

The couple of times its happened the last few days, it refuesd to go into first when I was just rolling up to a stop sign. I had to throw it in neutral and stop completely, then engage it. I may be way early on being concerned but I now have been through a similar incident a few years ago when it turned out to get progressively worse and was a slave replacement.

Bought my '92 in '98 with 62,000 miles. I replaced the slave cylinder around

G. Lee

Is there a visible way to determine if you need to bleed the system? Otherwise, do you just top off the fluid as your PM maintenance procedure.