99 protege clutch headaches:(

[antbriggs]

Well Heck........ I am stumped! I recently got a 1999 Mazda Protege, I love the car overall and am happy to have it! In the snow I got stuck and abused the clutch just a little no burning smells or any weird sounds, I got out of the ditch and the next day the clutch felt strange! I continued to drive it and tried adjusting the clutch and it seemed better but totally went out about a week or two later(went to floor and was inoperable!), I bought a clutch kit online and started to do the tear down for new clutch installation and got to the slave cylinder and the piston was sticking out the back of the housing and the housing broke! Of course I thought.......Awesome it's just the slave cylinder....WRONG, got the new slave put it in and same thing it's pushing too far and coming into the boot, I bled and bled and bled, finally using the drip method seemed to do the job.....But still pedal was soft and then very hard near the floor and blew the seal on the new slave! WTF??????? The fork seems to be going so far forward that it has hit the bell housing? My suspicion is the pressure plate is messed up or something came off inside???? Please help, Tony Frazzled in Oregon I guess I'd better get moving on the clutch kit installation? Just hoping maybe I might get lucky. Thanks all

[me109]

How did you adjust it if it's hydraulic?

[KAinjection]

Pedal adjustment more then likely

[antbriggs]

Adjustment

How did you adjust it if it's hydraulic?

I adjusted the pedal in a little to take up some of the slack that had developed since the problem.....I know that's not a typical thing to do but I was desperate to keep limping it along! So I'm sure it's my own doing that the slave went like it did cause my adjustment made the rod on the master push in further..... not a lot but just enough, I had tried to adjust adjust it back in before I tried the new slave. Anyway I'm guessing I better just do the clutch kit! I took a mirror and removed the fork boot and tried to look into the bell housing but I really couldn't see a lot but the fork is very sloppy without slave in fork moves back and forth a lot???????????????? I was praying of course that I wouldn't have to pull the transmission! I have air tools and everything but its a major pain ......Last one I did was my daughters civic probably 5 years back.......oh well it is what it is! any ideas to help me avoid the major clutch replacement is greatly appreciated..........Thanks, Tony

[me109]

Oh right. I always forget that one.

Sounds like there may be something wrong with the fork. Unless you got the wrong slave cylinder, but that seems unlikely.

[antbriggs]

Figured it out It's not good!

Oh right. I always forget that one.

Sounds like there may be something wrong with the fork. Unless you got the wrong slave cylinder, but that seems unlikely.

WOW..............I got a better mirror and small flashlight and took the fork boot out again and took a look and HOLY**** I saw major scoring on the throw out bearing(or what's left of it) and some bent metal into the pressure plate or something of that nature? so I just finished the tear down up to the drive shafts other than that it's almost ready to pull I'm being cautious since it's been awhile and I've never worked on Mazdas! only Hondas and Toyotas.......not that there's a lot of difference but I'm taking my time. Any advice on the drive shaft removal would be really appreciated!1999 Mazda Protege ES 1.8 Thanks for the help