Urgent! Clutch won't disengage

[@dam]

Hi all. I'm out of town on the start of a 2.5 month trip. Tonight I was driving home. At a stop, I pushed the clutch in on my '95 4.0 and heard something pop/snap. At the stop, I stalled. The clutch seems to be fully engaged all the time, and the pedal doesn't come very far off the floor. I managed to get home but starting it in first and trying to rev match to shift, but I'm traveling and need to get this fixed ASAP!

Before I left, I sucked out some of the DOT3 fluid from the clutch master cylinder resovior and refilled it with fresh fluid. Other than that, nothing new.

Ideas? New Master? New slave? Something else? Thanks!

 

[Anak]

The most help I can offer is suggest you look at this diagram and then try to look at your Jeep and figure out what is wrong (diagram is for a JK, but I doubt things are much different on an XJ):

A simple fix could be if the master has come disconnected from the pedal somehow.

I suspect more likely is that item #4 (what would traditionally be a clutch fork) has an issue of some form, either having lost its pivot point or having worn into the throwout bearing or something like that.

It is all speculation on my end.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

 

[@dam]

It was the clutch PEDAL that broke. Who'da thunk?

 

[Anak]

Wow.

That is certainly not the failure mode I would have expected.

Probably not the sort of thing your average Napa auto parts is going to have on hand either.

I hope you have access to the right resources to fix it.

If you can share any pictures of where it broke/how it failed I would like to see them.

 

[JeepNoob]

Wow.

That is certainly not the failure mode I would have expected.

Probably not the sort of thing your average Napa auto parts is going to have on hand either.

I hope you have access to the right resources to fix it.

If you can share any pictures of where it broke/how it failed I would like to see them.

Actually somewhat common. Happened on mine ('96) and some other memebers here have had it happen to them as well.

Do a bit of searching here. Some members have been able to tweak bent "Z-arms" on their clutch pedals back into place. Me, I went to the yard and pulled a good one.

If you can get a good, straight clutch pedal, my advice is to finish up some of the welds the bean-counters nixxed (Case in point, on both my bent clutch pedal and the one from the yard, some of the welds on the pivot pin only spanned half the circumference of the pin.)

I would also recommend welding some re-inforcement in between the Z-arm and the other arm of the clutch pedal. I used some 1/4" steel plate cut and filed to size, but at least one member here used an old socket lol.

 

[Anak]

I can find this thread:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1054440

But the pics are gone.

Becomes even more interesting given that mine is a '96.

Looks like clutch pedals need to become one of the things I watch for at the JY.

ETA: Found this:

Is this the standard failure mode?

 

[Green XJ Jeep]

I can find this thread:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1054440

But the pics are gone.

Becomes even more interesting given that mine is a '96.

Looks like clutch pedals need to become one of the things I watch for at the JY.

ETA: Found this:

Is this the standard failure mode?

That looks like it broke at the spot weld. To much heat I suppose.
Whats messed up is you can still get clutch pedals for ZJ's which rarely had 5 speeds but you cant get them for XJ's

 

[@dam]

I'm traveling for work and such. Don't have the time and tools to troubleshoot, so I took it to a transmission shop. They figured it out. Charged $200, but hey...it's CA

 

[four_shot]

Charged $200, but hey...it's CA

Ouch.