Terry Lefco

My 1996 C4 clutch has an intermittent problem. After a lot of driving, the top half of clutch travel is very soft and does nothing, but the bottom half does all the work so long as the pedal is depressed all the way to the floor. The problem goes away overnight!
I've already had the pedal assembly replaced so the next step is the slave cylinder, but I'm thinking maybe the pressure plate is getting weak when the engine gets hot. The clutch has 60,000 miles and otherwise seems fine.
Ideas?

GeoT3

after a long drive does your clutch make a creaking noise? mine does this after the car warms up and the noise goes away overnite. Try flushing the slave cylinder first see if there is an improvement.

Terry Lefco

No creaking but thanks for the suggestion.

Ray Calvo

I am leaning towards clutch slave cylinder also; seems 50K is the life of these things.

Is this worse after you shut car off after a drive? With car parked in garage and engine off, operating clutch seems to bring this on? At same time, while operating clutch with engie off, open driver's door and stick head out door and towards bottom rear of car; see if you hear the cylinder. Generally, that's the time when I first started noticing the slave cylinder problem.

Terry Lefco

Both responder were correct about the creaking clutch. It's quite apparent with the engine off. I'll try a slave cylinder replacement which isn't that big a deal. Thanks for the comments.

randy_h

Terry,
Try replacing the fluid in your clutch system. If there is any moisture in the system, the pedal will be spongy. I had a similar problem on my 95 993 C2 and a fluid replacement solved the problem.

hn

My 95 cab with 52km has the same problem and based on the record, the previous owner did have the clutch bleeded at around 30km. Does it mean i need to replace the cylinder?

thx

Terry Lefco

OK, my new slave cylinder seems to work fine. The car was great at a 3 day event at Jefferson Circuit and Summit Point. When the slave cylinder was replaced, it was necessary to bleed the clutch so I can't tell which was more important, but the combination was effective.
So who can tell me how to get more speed coming onto the front straight? Just kidding.