Because of the good weather I thought about a drive out today. The car is standing in the garage for 4 or 5 months now. When I wanted to start the car I felt no pressure on the clutch pedal. After a little search I noticed the small reservoir is empty. No fluid under the car, except a few oildrops from the manchet at the gearbox. This will be fixed later this spring. How come all the fluid is gone? Is it possible the reservoir all ready was low? I assume there has to be a leak somewhere....... When I parked it in the garage in october everything worked fine. the reservoir say "dot3 only" so I ordered 2 bottles today and will get them tomorrowmorning. Is it just filling up? Do I have to get the air out somewhere in the clutch system like with the brakesystem? Please some advice of our technical specialists, thanks in advance. Roel.
may be the clutch cylinder slave. I had the same failure and i changed it 6 months ago and now it's all right.
You can fill the reservoir and pump the clutch pedal,about 15 minutes, and keep adding brake fluid until you get the clutch pedal back to normal. I had the same problem. You can buy a new clutch slave cylinder for $200.00 ,the dealer wants $450.00. Do a search, one of the F-chatters has a seal for $20.00. Good luck Charles
If the fluid is just gone, maybe all it takes is refilling it. In my experience--and this is from a BMW, there was no bleeding needed. As to where it went, I think that the fluid is water soluble, so if the garage gets water running through it, any traces may have washed away. That is, no little puddle under the leak. I've also had the seals in a system like that fail, such that while the fluid didn't leak out, it was flowing around the piston rather than getting pushed to where it needed to go. In that case the fluid level was fine, but the pedal felt dead. That was on a particularly odd Renault master cylinder which acted like separate pistons for each wheel's brake line, so that it had many internal o-rings to fail. Probably not likely in this case, but just to note the possibility. Good luck.
Thanks guys, no fluid under the car. The garage is dry so nothing washed away. I will fill her up later and see what happens. The driver manual talks about bleeding the clutch system but doesn't talk about the location of the bleeding nipple. Is it at the clutch somewhere? Thanks in advance, Roel.
Well - not sure if it is the same, but I had a similar experience that was weird beyond belief. The owners manual says to FLUSH the system every year with new fluid, remember? Well I kinda let that go for a couple of years. One day - boom - clutch pedal goes to floor, no obvious leak. The damn clutch fluid had CONGEALED in the lines. I am beyond explanation. Just filling up with new fluid did not improve. Flush your system well - see what comes out. You may simply need to refill, and/or re-seal. I guess Ferrari knew what it was talking about when they wrote the manual after all. Good luck and let us know.
There is some good advice here Roel. Brake fluid does not normally evaporate. So there must be a small leak there somewhere. (I left my old Ford Fairlane sit for over 10 months last year. When I went to start the car, I found all the fuel had evaporated from the tank and the brake fluid resivior was empty. I found the brake master cylinder had a slight weep from the front seal. I filled up the resivior and flushed the system, removing all air. Brakes are good and it has not leaked any fluid since October last year. ) I would fill up the clutch resivior and bleed the clutch system. Once you get a good, strong pedal, start checking for leaks around the clutch master cylinder under the dash. If that is ok, then it could be a leaking slave body. Perhaps, you will not see any leaks. Just make sure you keep an eye on that level from now on. Let us know how you go mate.
Thanks PAP. This afternoon I filled the reservoir, only 1 cup was needed. Pushed the clutch for about 5 minutes, little airbubbles where seen, and the pressure came back. Drive out for 10 minutes, fluid still on good level. Drive out again for 15 minutes , fluid still on good level. Don't know if it is neccessary to bleed the system with the plug now on the transmission? I am wondered I only had to fill so low amount. Expected the whole system would be empty. I am of for a ride again!!!!! THANK YOU ALL FOR GENEROUS INPUT!!! FerrariChat is great!!
You're going to want to bleed your clutch slave cylinder. Just adding fluid and seeing bubbles means there's air in the line. Air is compressible, whereas brake fluid is not. You may be actuating the slave cylinder, but you may not be actuating all the way. Besides, you really should flush that line while you're at it. Bleed at the slave cylinder to get all the old fluid out. On my father's old RX-7, the slave cylinder went out because the clutch fluid had never been changed and the sludge at the slave cylinder caused the seal to fail.
No worries. I am always glad to help Roel. Great to hear you have a clutch pedal again. Seems like there was fluid still in the line if you didnt have to bleed it. But I would do what Bob suggested and give the clutch fluid a good flush. That will also eliminate any air that is still in the system.
