VoodooShark's V2 Buttz Build

One of the old ones. The one currently in there has a metal pushrod, whereas all of the OEM pics I'm finding are plastic; so I'm wondering if it's just a poor aftermarket unit, and am probably going to just buck up, swap it and hope that's that.

The spring looks g2g as best I can tell. I'd think that if that was the problem, the symptoms would be consistent and repeatable. As it currently is, the issue is intermittent and I can't intentionally force it to replicate (I can't ever get it to happen with the car static and off, for example, which I've tried to do so I can more easily hop out and try to look at what the slave is doing when it presents). It just does it when the temps are cold enough and it feels like it.

 

(OEM master ordered; Tasca estimated delivery Nov 9-11, just in time for me to have a four day weekend off work to struggle with the swap)

 

If the spring was the issues you would still get pressure on the clutch and it would disengage as you are still pushing the master if the pedal is on the floor. Sounds to me like a bad master that is not building the pressure it needs to push the slave.

This talks about brakes but the principles are the same.
https://carcarehunt.com/blog/5-symptoms-of-a-bad-master-cylinder.html

and this

 

Maybe you just need to get a clutch line fluid warmer lol

 

Placeholder update. New OEM master cylinder is here. I'm off work Wed-Fri, giving me a nice five day weekend and plenty of time to try and tackle that job.

As a pre-emptive reward to myself for what I'm sure will be a flawless smooth master cylinder swap that definitely won't involve any whining to @JohnnyTightlips, a nice shiny CPE exhaust mani also arrived today courtesy of @lasangelos; excited to get that installed this week, as well (I accidentally deleted our PM convo, lol, so thanks again!)

 

Master cylinder DONE. It wasn't nearly as bad a job as the internet had primed me to expect. Bolt access and pedal out was easy with the lower dash trim removed, the struggle was getting the new master cylinder to slip back into the pedal assembly and then twist back into place.

Test drive gave me no pedal issues, and ambient temp is right in the range where it would previously act up on me, but time will tell. The pedal spring is also apparently missing two of the three plastic guides, which I think is allowing it to shift a little bit and cause a clicking sound at the top of the pedal rebound...annoying but liveable as long as the pedal is done sticking on me.

Whew.

 

Good news: Master cylinder seems to have done the trick on my clutch pedal. So far, so good; not a single instance of the pedal sticking after the swap. Still crossing my fingers there won't be a delayed onset.

Bad news: I'm leaking transmission fluid out of the driver side transmission output seal at the driveshaft. Not happy. An axle swap was one of the only jobs I miserably failed at with my genjuan, so I have no interest in attempting to remove one from the pu to replace the seal. @JohnnyTightlips suggested it could possibly be the transmission breather not opening, pressurizing the transmission and causing the fluid to push out of the seal. He turned me onto @Mauro_Penguin 's breather cap fix (https://www.mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/transmission-breather-crack-pressure.5658/) so I just yanked that thing off (losing the rubber diaphragm altogether, in the process, so I've no clue what condition it was in), and modified it with a bit of aluminum from a PBR can (heh). We'll see if that's all she takes, but I'm not hopeful given my usual luck. Will probably end up having to buy a new output seal and take the car to a shop to have it replaced. Pretty disheartening; I thought the clutch fix would be my last real issue with the car.

This was the best quick view of the leak point that I could get from underneath. Sorry for the blurriness, my tears were smudging the camera lens.

 

Yeah I read & watch those cv axle & wheel bearing replacement videos / threads like once a day in hopes I’ll get motivated enough to even attempt it haha I get exhausted just reading about it

 

Problem I had with my juan was that we couldn't even get the driveshaft free of the wheel hub, let alone even attempting what's supposed to be the ACTUAL hard part of freeing it from the transmission. I broke down and took 'er to a shop for that one. If it comes down to replacing the seal on the pu here, I'm not sure I'll even bother attempting it before just calling the shop, tbh. One of those jobs I'm just pretty certain I don't have the patience for, and I also likely used up all my Shade Tree Goodwill Karma by having a surprisingly minor amount of difficulty in swapping the master cylinder -- which I was expecting to be an absolute nightmare of a job.

 

Yeah you better count those blessings lol
After my rear subframe incident I’m probably gonna let the shop do the wheel bearings job

 

Just unbolt everything off of the hub/knuckle, and pull the knuckle and cv axle together.

The transmission side is not the problem, that should come out easy.

 

Isn't the c-clip into the transmission the part that sucks dick to pop loose?

 

I mean it doesnt slide out like a lubed dildo in an anus, but it should slide out with a couple of good pulls.

You should be able to squeeze some small pry bars in between the CV ends and the transmission, in order to give you a good head start on the clip.

 

Also just don't be a pussy

 

why didn't i think of that

 

Like a vampire seeing his reflection lol

 

Week and a half on, and no new signs of ongoing leakage. If I'm lucky, this will be a one-off occurrence that I eventually forget even happened. Grabbed another bottle of the Trib to make sure it's properly topped off once I'm convinced no more leak, and hopefully that'll be that.