Jeep clutch died tonight. What should I expect to find?

1996 Jeep Cherokee AX15

Coming home from work this evening on one shift I felt like my clutch was a bit stiff. I didn't think anything of it, maybe my toe contacted a bracket or something else under the dash. 10 miles and maybe as many shifts later as I'm pulling up to a stoplight in town the pedal feels really firm, almost solid, and as I push it, it goes completely soft and to the floor. No clutch and it won't pump up. I'm first in line in the turn lane too, of course. Luckily two stoners pulled up(one was selling weed over the phone) and helped push me into a parking spot.

What should I be looking at? I have been experiencing a little loss of clutch fluid over the past 2 months but I haven't gotten around to fixing it. Probably just that? I can get a new master, hydraulic line and slave in a kit for a relatively cheap price. I'm worried slightly about the pedal getting firm just before it went out. I don't think clutch/PP, TOB or fork, but I don't know enough to ease my mind.

Based on my experience with my Jeep Comanche.

If the M/C has puked out of the back, it's now filling your fuse panel with brake fluid. You'll have a lot of fun from that.

There's no fork, it's a concentric slave cylinder. This means pulling the trans to swap it.

If you're pulling the transmission, might as well swap the clutch, pilot bearing and throwout bearing too.

Mine has the external slave cylinder thankfully. And the fuse panel is horizontal to the master so fluid would have to travel sideways to get into my wiring.

Mine was an 89, I guess they changed things by then.

Check the master and slave. Those are easy to replace. I'd probably do both. Beyond that it's remove the trans and replace everything. 

Did the master cylinder pushrod bend, then break?

My guess is slave is frozen.  Then blew the hose.

Jeep went from the hydraulic throwout bearing to rhe slave cylinder setup in '94, IIRC.   Miles better then the failure-prone earlier system, and I made some good money swapping out the bearing retainer, bellhousing, and hydraulics on local Jeepers' rigs about a decade ago.

Get underneath and find out where your leak is first, and then see if anything looks physically out of whack.   Your symptoms, aside from the leakage, sound like what happened when my t/o bearing came apart in the Wrangler in my avatar.     Were you getting any noise from the bearing before this happened?

Even if you have to pull the trans, it is a pretty easy job.

Good chance a froze Master. Easy fix. 

Cooter said:

 Your symtons, aside from the leakage, sound like what happened when my t/o bearing came apart in the Wrangler in my avatar.     Were you getting any noise from the bearing before this happened?

It's made the same amount of TOB noise for the past 33000 that I've owned it but yes, that is my worry. The sound and the dB did not change prior to clutch failure though.

Even if you have to pull the trans, it is a pretty easy job.

What sucks is that I won't be the one doing it. Were I at my summer home(makes being a seasonal migrant worker sound fancy) I'd have tools and a shop, but here I've got a snowy parking spot. This job will be going to a mechanic.

In reply to buzzboy :

Mine didn't get any louder.   

But it did get harder and suddenly give way, just like yours.






A new throwout bearing was all it needed.

The master pushrod snapped. That explains the pedal going to the floor. Now I must wonder why the master is impossible to push. That makes me think seized master or slave, right? I'm going to crack the hydraulic line and see if the master will move. That way I'll know if it's the master or further down the line. 

In reply to buzzboy :

I'd replace them both.. they aren't expensive IIRC

New master and slave. New clutch/pp/TOB/fork. Pedal effort is lower, uptake is at the same point, shifts are less notchy. How did the shifter feel change?

But the mechanic handed me the keys and asked about the 2000rpm rev limit. Um... it had an undiagnosed 3000rpm rev limit for the past 33000 miles I've owned it.

They also pointed out that my cat is melted/clogged. This could be from the ignition missfire it had when I bought it. Maybe it's rev limit is based on back pressure?

Whoa

Time for a test pipe.

This was a law abiding California shop. My Jeep legally lives in a non-emissions county in North Carolina. A friend of mine is a snow-cat mechanic who might be willing to remove material from inside the cat for me.

Shifter feel changed because it is now dis-engaging all the way. It was a little draggy for a long time before the total failure.