I was making machine guards at work today, so was covered with polycarbonate saw dust from running sheets thru the table saw; so despite cleaning up, I was not comfortable going straight to the shop and hovering over the axle housing or parts. Too many opportunities for shards to fall off of my person and land inside of the works; no bueno.
And now for something (almost) completely different. When I went to leave work today the clutch pedal in the Jeep felt like it hung up part way down and then snapped free to the floor. I'm checking the placement of my feet (specifically the lazily placed heel of my throttle foot) to make sure I'm not tripping over myself (despite not having felt myself kicking myself). No, that doesn't seem to be it; still doing it. Maybe it's a bad swing bushing in the pedal pivot? Maybe it's the return spring wearing a notch in the pedal arm? Still doing it, but at least she is still driveable.
Since I have been driving the Jeep regularly I have missed the occasional shift, and felt that certain mistimed shifts weren't necessarily my fault, wondering if the hydraulic system was starting to falter; but the fluid level was always good and there weren't any obvious leaks under it, so I assumed that was A-okay.
The "hang-up" felt a bit "grunchy" a few times, stopped entirely on occasion, but still persisted. On arriving at an interim stop on the way home, entering the parking lot I decided to pump the pedal a bunch of times, again getting various results.
When I went to leave the establishment, having to push the clutch in to engage the starter safety switch, when the engine kicked over there was an immediate grinding noise, as if I was clashing gears, despite being in neutral.
This is really not good. I shut it off. Try again and it seems to dissipate. I'm thinking throw out bearing. I'm close to home, so let's see if we can limp this thing there.
As I was rolling out of the spot trying to pump the clutch and get the tranny in gear, of course there was another car that had already passed, but was now backing up behind me into the parking spot opposite.
So now I've rolled half out of the spot, no power steering or brakes. Get it in reverse, clutch pedal in and start it... in gear as if the clutch is out, and we are backing up. Turn the key off and we stop. Get it in first, and there are pedestrians. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Okay, clutch pedal in (as if that matters, but it allows the starter to turn), she fires up and we are rolling. Get to the stop light at the exit, shut the key off. Wait for green, wait for oncoming traffic to clear, start her up and we are rolling, left turn and let's hope we can get this thing to shift because 4.10's in the rear don't get us very much ground speed before revving out at about 3k (it's a Jeep).
Okay, once we are rolling I can still manage to shift the thing up into third (I guess all of those fun times driving Freshy's Buick w/o the clutch and just matching gears is still with me). Thankfully I didn't have to stop at either of the remaining two lights.
Now usually I pull around the short side of our circle and have to back up the hill a little, and over the berm at the end of our driveway; so I decided to go the long way around so that maybe I can just pull up, stop, shut her off and coast back into the drive from the other side of the hill. No luck. She hung up on the berm. Okay, in reverse, don't crash into the Ford or the Chevy; start 'er up, bump the rear wheels over the berm and shut 'er off. That should be enough down hill to get the front wheels to bump over the berm. Nope. First gear, start 'er up again just momentarily, shut 'er off. Out of gear and this time she feels like she just barely wants to bump over the berm so I give a little hip bump in my seat and she just nudges over and down into the drive. No tow truck for this cat! No sirree.
Crap.
So out comes the flash light, and we're under the hood checking master cylinder fluid level; still good. Dive under to have a look at the slave and she is not dripping or looking loose or anything weird, so it must be in the bell housing; probably.
Crap.
Okay, so it's supposed to snow tonight for the morning commute, so that complicates the wife and me car pooling, and I have to go in on Saturday for a few hours to take a bulk delivery; probably will get stuck there, so I better get the carrier stuff organized somehow so that I can work on it there with the press after I clock out.
When the weather clears Karl and I will likely use the flat bed trailer to haul it to the shop. There I will start by removing the slave cylinder from the bell housing and see if that tells me anything. Then I guess I will have to decide how much pain I am willing to accept vis a vis pulling the transfer case and trans, or having it done by a shop. If I do it myself there is the option of upgrading the transfer case with a slip yoke eliminator, wider chain and 6 planetary gear (in lieu of the stock 3 gear). Also, there are tranny upgrades that eliminate the rattling sound in neutral with the clutch out (the stock design allows the reverse gear to rattle on the idler shaft when not loaded... or, to the best of my recollection, something to that effect).
Probably don't need any of that, but it is nice to dream.
Blah.