drove truck home last night and everything fine n' dandy. then drove to work this mornin in -5 temps and closer i got to work the lower the clutch pedal got, DIDNT fail completely but was goin lower and lower. made it to work and back home for lunch hour right now, when i checked master at work it was empty, WET but empty, no visable leaks on ground or around trans. i peeked at the trans and see that my slave cylinder is INSIDE the bell housing, thus pulling my trans to replace it!!!! god no! anyway i filled up the master at work, pumped the pedal numerous times, drove home(still a low pedal) but no fluid loss....yet. are these self bleeds? did my slave fail? i was quoted $675 to replace my slave!!!! ouch.

anybody please help as i need my truck badly! im keepin my fingers crossed that it was just the cold temps this morning that somehow affected my hydraulic system and caused this.

trucks a 97 2.3 step side with 5 speed.

 

its not a self blead system you have to bleed it by the valve on the side of the trans... mine did this when it got cold the fluid would just disapear. come to find out when it got warmer i got a smell of brake fluid in the cab the master was leaking .. change the master and try that if it still does it its time to go pull the trans

 

ya i bled it today numerous times! filled the resovior about 4 or 5 times . pedal is back to normal height now and hopefully this lasts! i looked at my master also and didnt see any signs of leakage, musta been somethin with the cold weather that affected it. also i've never smelt brake fluid inside the cab...yet! if and when i DO chance a faulty master(im sure i will at some time), is it fairly easy or a pain? i can see it on the firewall and inside the cab attached to my clutch pedal...wat kinda job is it to do though?

 

master is easy to replace.. unhook the line going to the master to the trans then unbolt the little res. the unhook the clutch rod and nutural safty switch then grap the master and twist and pull it out.. install is reverce of this.. then bleed it out. fyi get lots of brake fluid it took 5 big bottles when i done mine to get all the air out. also you will need to tool to take the line off the slave. i just use a little screw driver and push the white collor in around it to release the clips holding the line in

 

I had a similar thing happen. What I did was first fill the reservoir like you did. Then I cracked the bleed valve open (keeping a tube to the bleed valve to direct the fluid flow away from the clutch housing), and let it run for maybe 20 or 30 seconds to let off any air. This part of the bleeding requires no pumping of the pedal. I shut the bleed valve and that seemed to fix it, so I did not finish bleeding. this worked. hope this helps.