LOTS of dirt/rust in clutch reservoir fluid

[SirThomas88]

Bob (camrtm), Rob (BigBird) and I did a 5 speed swap on my 2000 Camry last summer around June. Since then my trans has been grinding and been hard to put into gear at times. Always figured the synchros were shot. More recently, occasionally I have to double clutch to shift out of gear, and there is often a loud squeak coming from the firewall when I depress the pedal. Also recently, the point at which the clutch engages has been inconsistent on a day-to-day basis.

Anyways, figured I'd try replacing the slave cylinder and see if that fixed anything. Well, in doing so I noticed that there is a LOT of what looks like sediment in my clutch master cylinder reservoir. Also, when I removed the hard clutch line fitting from the MC and applied air pressure into the top of the reservoir, several large air bubbles came out from where the hard line attaches to the cylinder.

The clutch lines and master cylinder were all new when they were installed over Summer. Master cylinder came from Auto Zone, don't remember what brand. Cylinder fluid is Wearever Gold Dot 3 & 4 Brake Fluid. The slave cylinder I had been using came with my transmission, and is very rusted on the outside, but looks fine inside the boot. I have a stainless steel soft clutch line installed. No clutch booster, line runs straight from MC to the slave.

The rust/dirt is mostly settled at the bottom of the reservoir, and as you'll see in the photo below, it looks kinda shiny and brown, which is why i think its rust.

But the master cylinder is new!! I don't understand where all this rust is coming from. Should I replace the cylinder? Or should I just remove it, clean out the dirt, and reinstall it with clean fluid?




http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...inder-rust.jpg

[deadrx7conv]

Another reason to avoid unknown brand non-OE parts.

I bet it came up from the slave, especially if transmission has been sitting around a salvage yard for a few years.

[SirThomas88]

Originally Posted by deadrx7conv

Another reason to avoid unknown brand non-OE parts.

I bet it came up from the slave, especially if transmission has been sitting around a salvage yard for a few years.

Thanks for the input. Yeah that's one of my theories. The trans was sitting around for awhile.

I'm also going to put in synthetic Dot 3 & 4 brake fluid this time.

[Chris Crash]

Another vote for it being a problem of having AutoZone no-name part. You might be better off getting a slave cylinder rebuild kit, and an OEM MC from a junkyard, with a rebuild kit for that as well. I'd try to return the AutoZone MC to them as defective.