Hello all.. Yep living the F355 dream once again.. I had not driven my spider for at least 3 months and yesterday i got ITCHY and took the 355 out for a midnight thrash.. All was going well but soon i noticed the gear changes were getting harder and notchier.. It was harder to shift into all gears with the clutch in. (Similar to when trying to shift into 3rd gear on a cold morning) In fact i had to REV MATCH the gear changes so i could get a gear. I then noticed that the clutch pedal was on the floor and only grabbed in the last 10% of travel before hitting the floor. Gears were harder to get now.. Turned the car around to nurse it back home but stalled at the lights in a high gear and then COULD NOT ENGAGE A GEAR!! I was stuck at the lights!! Anyway i finally got into first and limped it home.. looked under the car no leaks. I turned it off. Clutch Pedal was still to the floor but with the car off could select gears but clutch pedal still felt all wrong. There was no CRUNCHING or WHINING NOISES during this whole saga..And the clutch was not slipping nor has ever slipped. 47k so far on original clutch Has anyone else suffered a similar event? What could be the most likely cause?
Likely a clutch master cylinder failure. You might see fluid on the floor of the car near the pedals, possibly not.
Well thanks for the reply. Nope no fluid at the pedals.. So how best to diagnose if it is in fact a master cylinder problem? Do i attempt to re bleed? Take it apart? Could it still be a slave cylinder problem? Throw out clutch bearing?
My release bearing went a few weeks ago and I still had clutch action (and could drive the car to a garage to get it fixed) but it made an awful squealing noise. I'd lost a little fluid out of the header tank, as some of it had gone into the bell housing, but there was no visible leak anywhere.
No fluid leaking anywhere? Listen to the mechanic in the room...Tim says master cylinder. I would start there.
Mine did exactly this over the winter. Look back to my threads. This is a very easy fix. The master cylinder gets gummed up and the spring can't work. I'll bet every 355 will have this exact same problem at some point. Just take it out then clean and replace. Bleed the clutch and go.
You were all spot on!! I took a look at the passenger footwell and there were indeed a couple of drops of brake fluid under the pedals.. Now its time to suck out that brake fluid and do the "mywhitesell" RECO thing on the Master Cylinder... WINNING!! One last thing what brake fluid do you guys use for the clutch?
The brake fluid and clutch fluid share a common reservoir. One of the forum-favorite brake fluids is Motul RBF 600. It's what I use in my 355 and Carrera S. No complaints.
I'm sure there is some Ferrari branded Brake fluid that's 200 a bottle. I just bought Prestone high temp fluid at AutoZone. I don't track my car or anything. If you do, then there may be better ones out there.
