Al Hasse

The other night, while driving home from a company softball game I was playing in, I somehow lost the clutch pedal in my 89 RS.

I had to ride a ferry across the Puget Sound to get home, so far, everything is fine. Then, as I am boarding and driving down the pier, the clutch pedal went to the floor with absolutely no resistance. I'm still in first gear, so getting parked in line on the boat was not much of an issue. Upon investigation, I found the pedal was just swinging from its mounting bracket and it was no longer connected to the master cylinder.

What to do now? I still have 20 or so miles to get home. Fortunately, it's late enough that traffic isn't very heavy. I could start the car, but not force it into gear, or I could start the gear in first gear to get rolling and use RPM to shift into higher gears as needed, I decided to go that route after letting all the traffic off the boat in font of me. Stop lights were the same story, and fortunately, I was either first in line, or the only car stopped at the 3 I had to wait on. I got the car home without issue and no tow truck.

Next day, I got up under the dash and removed interference (switches on top of brake and clutch pedals) so I could see what was going on. What happened is the clasp that holds the master cylinder shaft to the pedal had broken off, leaving the pedal free to swing on its bracket. I have since found a brake clasp and that is going on later today, and the car should be road worthy again.

Here's a pic of my disconnected mater cylinder to clutch connection, the empty hole on the top center is where the brake light switch goes.

Zepher

iTrader: (1)

I had to drive my car home once when the slave snapped.
snapped down at the oceanfront at 4pm on a weekday.
I am just glad I had a strong starter and battery.

the next time I had to get the car towed when the master cylinder rod snapped in 2.
My trans is messed up and won't go into any gear without the clutch pressed in, so I couldn't put it into gear and start up.