FL.BeachBum

To start off I don't claim to be a machenic by no means. but I grew up working on older cars and trucks with my dad (back before computers were under the hood) so I do like getting my hands dirty when I can!

So my girlfriend and I went out to eat saturday evening and came home with no problems. Sunday morning got in the jeep pushed in the clutch to crank the jeep and it went to the floorboard! I could'nt believe it !! did I burn my clutch up?? You usually get some slipping or somthing before it burns out. Unfortunatly I didnt have time sunday to deal with it. So Im in missury all day sunday thinking I somehow burned my clutch up. I then remembered I had to replace a slave cylinder on my older jeep before and that had to be it. Ok I can deal with that right atleast its not a clutch, but I hear its a bitty to get out of the JK's Maybe it will be a line that is leaking or somithing of that nature. So I get out and get under my jeep no fluid on the ground no leaks anywhere so I was kinda scratching my head.
I opened up the brake fluid reservoir and where the line from the slave cylinder goes into it, it looked like there was a seperate reservior inside that had no fluid in it. The smaller resvr had a small square hole at the top of the resvr that looks like it will allow brake fluid overfill in it. []So i cut a straw and stuck it in the square hole and filled it to a safe level and closed it and started pushing in the clutch for about 10 minutes , by joe the pressure was coming back. so after getting the air out of the line i went back and filled it up some more and wha la it seems to be good as knew I hope!!

I have to admit I felt like a complete idiot realizing that this could have been a very expensive oversight not only on my part, but the dealerships part cause I have had my jeep up at the dealership about 6 times for oil changes since they send me the discount coupons and I know they check all the fluid levels. I was wondering wouldnt they know to check this? in all honesty evan if you check the brake fluid you have to look in this small sqaure opening to check the levels for the slave clyinder , to me this looks like poor designing by jeep.

And throughout this there have been no check engine lights of any sort come on.
Sorry for the very long story, but unless anyone knows of a better way of doing this all you munual transmissions out there ! open up your brake fluid reservior and make sure your fluids levels are good.


I took some pics to explain what I'm talking about , I will try to post asap

Stuka

Good thing you noticed it. But I am at a loss as to how you lost the fluid to begin with.

ccdjeep

Dealerships know what they are doing?? Man I don't let the dealers touch my stuff unless its warranty work. And I'm like you, I worked on all OLD stuff without computers until this came along. But I have a manual and I appreciate your info! Good luck with your JK!

whatroads

I hope you are still under warranty. The JK will have a pneumatic slave/throwout setup. When these let go, they to a really good job of covering the clutch plates with oil. This will cause you to have to replace the clutch too as it will be essentially useless.

My JK is an Auto. This happed to my old YJ. No warning at all and there never was any oil under the Jeep tranny. Gave me a good excuse to move forward with the swap of my AX15 for a T18 I was planning, (I already had the T18). I used the old cable based slave throwout bearing setup similar to the CJ

FL.BeachBum

That had me scratching my head and wondering how long this has been going on. And if other parts arn't getting fluids they need. I'm gonna give it a good 21 point Jeep dealorship fluid check LMAO.. no seriously I'm gonna check the trani fluids just so I can sleep at night!!

JackMac4

Wow - thanks for the post. I plan on checking my resevoir when I change out my brakes here soon, but I'll definitely have to study this some more. I'd be interested to know how the fluid level got down to nothing as well.

I'll definitely add this to my list of things to check now and then, though. Thanks!

999666

Think you mean hydrolic as air in the line seemed to be the op's original problem.

OP think you should look into what is leaking, the break fluid resevoir is desighned to allow the slave cylinder to run out of break fluid before the reservoir completely drains itself, this is done so that when theirs a leak, you have clutch failure (signaling to the driver theirs a problem) but can still stop the vehicle as theirs still break fluid in the system to operate the breaks.

JeepsterWayne

that's good to know, I am glad I read that. Are there any other problem's on the 07's that we should know about.

FL.BeachBum

I did look for leaks under the dash where the arm connects to the slave clynder arm on the interior to the other side of the engine wall where the slave clynder is next to the master cylinder and followed the line down to the part that is next to the transmission. Found no leaks!! Can you advise me on what you think it may be or is there a deeper rooted problem somewhere? I'm not sure how much fliud a slave cylinder would use verses the master cylinder I m thinking nowhere near what the master would . Unfortunatly I never looked in the smaller reservior b4 to see if it has allways been at a lower level.
Can anyone take a few minutes (that has a manual trans.) and see what your level in that secondary reservior is?? Thanks

chesapeakebayprints

23,00 miles for me and the secondary is still up to snuff...wow, though, that's a pretty spooky story...I always carry 2 cans of fluid with me at alltimes after the fiasco with my TJ leaking fluid fron the slave connection and getting caught out in the boonies till a friend bailed me out with some fluid a few hours later....I learned...keep spare clamps and fluids..