Diagnosing clutch issue.

I'm trying to figure out the potential problem which I'm guessing someone here can recognize with ease. Disclaimer I don't know anything until it breaks and I need to fix it so apologize if I sound silly.

A few weeks back my clutch gave out on a trail. Nothing technical just driving on dirt. The clutch pedal lost pressure and would regain pressure randomly. I stopped put it in neutral and could not engage gears again. Also could not start it as a result) Then sounded like the slave cylinder poped (it did and lost all fluid) while I was trying to pump the clutch pedal.

I ordered a new master/slave kit which is forged steel so nothing to break, reinstalled it and after trying to bleed out the air, the piston on the slave poped out (luckily nothing to break unlike the OEM plastic part). My question is, I'm not really sure what the slave piston pushes up against. A plate to disengage the clutch plate? Can that get seized? I tried punching the plate back there with a screw driver by hand and it did not seem to budge. What would be the rough prosecute to diagnose this as I feel like it's not the clutch cylinders.

The clutch itself is not that old and should not have failed (or I am told).

This is a '98 v6 4.0 manual transition.

Any advice highly appreciated. Let me know if you need any additional details. Again I didn't know what I'm doing half the time.


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External slave I'm assuming? If the throwout bearing grenaded you could still have a no release clutch. The bearing is actuated by the clutch fork, which is what the slave presses against. Any noise when it's running or trying to push in the clutch?

Yes, if it's an external slave cylinder, the slave piston is going to push against a clutch fork (so called because the other end is two-pronged. The two prongs fit around the transmission input shaft and interface with the throwout bearing.) If it's an internal slave cylinder, the slave piston is going to interface directly with the throwout bearing (or so I recall.) Either way, you're looking at removing the transmission to get to those.

Some things to look at before you go that far is the master cylinder mounting bolts (I had a couple bolts that came loose once and caused a similar problem, just not as bad.) and the clutch pedal Z-arm that the slave cylinder attaches to. They've been known to get bent and cause problems like this.