Clutch problems

First off, my problem is on a 96 XJ 4.0 5 speed. Yesterday started the problem. I was driving back to the house and when I went to push in the clutch it wouldn't go in all the way. It met some resistance. It felt tlike ther was something preventing the pedal from going down. I pulled out the floor mat and it was still doing it. Drove the rest of the way home and it would down shift okay but the clutch pedal would only go down about an inch and was pretty dhard to shift. This morning I get in the Jeep and there is no pressure on the pedal. It just flops back and forth. I checked the fluid level and it was almost full, only a little down. Any ideas?

Normal failure mode of a hydraulic clutch is the same as a brake system. The pedal goes down all the way , but won't disengage the clutch. But when the pedal won't go down all the way, it indicates some type of linkage failure. You have to visually follow the system down and look for interference of breakage. There is at least one more thread going on this without resolution so far?????????????

I went ahead and replaced the master cylinder because I noticed a leak coming from it. Now I cannot get pressure to build up in the system. When I open up the bleeder on the slave, nothing comes out. When the clutch pedal is being pumped, i can feel the fluid moving in the line, I think.

Sounds like air in the system.

Do you have the internal slave cylinder, or is your's on the outside of the bell housing? I take it that you try to pump up the master, but it won't pump up, it just keeps going down all the way?

Yes, it is on the outside of the bell housing. I pumped ont it for 30 minutes and still nothing is coming out of the bleeder screw on the slave. How often does something get stuck inthe line that runs form the master to the slave?

Took everything apart and put back together just in case i did something wrong. I have some pressure now at the pedal but when i open the bleeder screw, still no fluid. Any thoughts?

IIRC, a 96 is an external (as you've confirmed.) I've never replaced mine (94,) but from what I remember, it's sold as a complete sealed set of master, slave and lines all preassembled, and prefilled. What looks like a bleed screw, isn't.

As ChiX Jeff notes, unless your system has been modified, the bleed screw will not bleed. There is a tapped hole for a bleeder, but the hole is blind, and you would need to drill it to use it for bleeding.

Theoretically if (with slave not mounted to bell housing yet) you fill the master cylinder reservoir, and then push the slave piston in as far as it will go, then slowly release it, it should draw in enough fluid to fill both itself and the line to it, and it will then be bled. Whether this actually happens or not seems to vary. My son did this and it worked pretty well but still seemed a little soft at first, but he said after he had driven it a while it bled itself the rest of the way and was fine.