So last night while driving my truck to a friends house I was stuck in rush hour traffic in the rain, so I should have expected something would happen.
I was in stop and go traffic, creeping up to a red light when my clutch started feeling a little...odd. Sure enough the light changes, I push the clutch pedal down and shift into 1st, release the pedal but the pedal stays on the floor and the truck died. It's dark, did I mention it's raining, and now everybody behind me is pissed off. So I switch on the hazards and start cussin'. I managed to wedge my foot under the clutch pedal and pry it up off the floor and at this point it feels fine, like nothing is wrong. I manage to start the truck and drove on to my friends, and then home again without issue. Today (also raining, great) I head out to run errands and at first it feels fine, but as the day progressed it began to happen again, and always at inconvenient times like on hills or at lights.
What seems to be happening is I press the pedal down, the clutch disengages normally, but then the longer the pedal is held down the clutch slowly re-engages, to the point where it stalls, even though the pedal is still down. And the pedal stays down and has to be pried up with my foot. At this point the shift lever is stuck in gear as well, and will not come out of gear easily. I did not try to force it out, I have a curse of forcing things so I try to play nice with it. Once I pry the pedal up I can operate it normally and shift normally, until at some point when it gets stuck again, most commonly at stoplights. One small difference is that it now feels as if it is engaging when the pedal is about 1/2" off the floor, when it used to engage much later, when the pedal was mostly released.
Doing some internet research it sounds like the likely culprit is the slave cylinder (also seen this referred to as the release cylinder), or possibly the hydraulic line that goes from the master cylinder to the slave. I have also seen recommendations that if the slave or master needs to be replaced to go ahead and replace them both, as they have the same parts in them, with the same age and number of cycles on them, so if one goes, the other is on it's way out too.
I have checked my fluid level, and it is sitting squarely in between the max and min levels, but I don't know where it was a week ago, could have been right at the max. I have taken quick glances at the area around the clutch master cylinder and inside the cab at the pushrod that goes through the firewall when you depress the pedal and no signs of any wetness at all. Tomorrow I will check the slave cylinder and I expect to find fluid behind the boot where the pushrod engages the transmission. It is dark and still raining, so none of that is happening tonight. Truck has over 263K miles on the drivetrain, engine is newer.
Question: is there anything I have missed or need to also check? Any recommendations from the hive mind? Thank you in advance!