Clutch pedal working intermittently

[Craigsfiesta]

Hi all,
Driving to work today I went to change gear and the clutch pedal did not spring back and could not change gear. After pulling to the side of the road and waiting a couple of mins it started to work again. Made it home and it happened again right outside the house.

what would you do first? After a bit of looking at forums I am thinking it might be worth changing the master cylinder?

any suggestions are a help - 05 fiesta 1.6 zetec s

thank you

 

[Handy Andy]

Make sure you have fluid, although this sounds more like your return spring is bad, or snapped off the holster.

The return spring helps lift the pedal back to start position. When you press down on the pedal - don't do it all the way, just partially - and see if it "sticks" if that is the case then this is contamination and/or hose kink damage. Need to look for damages - no guarantees if this is the direct cause - but holding the pedal partway down by suction means the master is good, the slave or tubing is the culprits. There is a return spring in the clutch pack too that pushes the slave to engage the clutch - so it does this to help it retract.

Now if the tubing is bad, there may be a constriction - or kink in the line when you retract release the clutch pedal to bring it back up to start - that kink forms a block - it is strong enough to hold the return spring from retracting the plunger back out of that cylinder you talk about.

Else the slave cylinder is causing this - it's "grooved" by the forks in the clutch pack - may need a whole new clutch and slave cylinder - due to the fingers damaging the slave side of this.

 

[Craigsfiesta]

I took her out today for a little test drive and it happened again, after a bit of investigation it turned out the arm for the cylinder was slipping off my clutch pedal. I couldn’t see any obvious way of fixing it so put it back on its notch and cable tied it on.

I was expecting a place to put a split pin or something, going to research what the correct way is

 

[Handy Andy]

So this may mean the Clutch "master" is worn out and the groove and seat used to hold that little plunger - is bad, so it pops out and the pedal goes dead.

IF the clipping idea works - might want to take a pic of it and post it so others can see if their clutch plungers are also "falling out" from the socket and need something like what you did to keep them going.