Clutch pedal stuck

Ok, something really weird and kinda scary happened today. To set the scene, my set up includes MGW shifter, Steeda clutch spring and only about to crack 8,000km.

Anyway, as I'm driving back home, freeway, peak hour, lots of shuffling gears back and forward, I notice that shifting into 1st gear gotten a bit harder.

Haven't thought of it much, but, the problem started getting worse and worse. It got to the point where I actually had to use quite a lot of force to put it on the 1st gear.

Then the problem started affecting 2nd and 3rd gears progressively as well. Next thing I know and I'm wrestling the shifter to change damn gears! It got so bad that I had to take off from the 2nd gear as I simply couldn't put it into the 1st!

By the time I got home, I was pretty much stuck in the 3rd gear.

Throughout all this, clutch pedal seemed to be working fine, maybe felt a little bit softer than usual, but couldn't really think of it too much due to all the stress trying to keep the car moving through the peak hour traffic.

First thing I thought, ok, something happened with the shifter, maybe I got the faulty one, maybe it wasn't assembled properly in the shop... however I have easily put at least several months and 5,000kms on it already and it worked like a charm so far.

As I got out of the car, I noticed that the clutch pedal is pressed half way down! Considerably lower than all other pedals. I gently pulled it up with my hand and it depressed itself back into position.

I inspected the spring - it looked good, in place, solid, working properly. I looked at the master cylinder, no apparent signs of leakage.

I got back into the car, pumped clutch few times to make sure it works and tried changing gears - everything worked perfectly. I took the car for a drive around the block and no issues at all! Clutch works fine and gears are popping in perfectly. I could not replicate the same problem since.

I have no idea what happened and why, but it gave me a bit of a scare! I researched forums around and it appears that only handful of people had similar issues and it turned out to be faulty master or slave cylinder, which dealers were happy to replace with no bigger issues.

I'll book it to get it checked out ASAP by the dealer and see what's going on. A bit of a bad timing as only today I got it checked out for that wiring recall! :frusty:

Wonder if anyone had similar issue? I'll keep you all posted on the progress with this.

Update: dealership didn't find anything, apparently everything is in order, works fine and no leaks... they couldn't explain why and never heard of such case before.

Weird. Never happened since either. Trolls. Must be trolls.

Hope it's a one off. It does happen but I know how annoying it can be. I had a case where the brakes on my Pajero failed coming up to lights one morning. I had to really stand on it to stop. No one could find anything wrong. Only ever happened that once :shrug:

I have the same setup and had something strange happen on the way up to Brisbane on the weekend. I've noticed that the pedal doesn't return all the way up with the clutch spring, so after driving for a couple hours on the freeway, the clutch had basically 1/4 of its normal operating travel. This made it quite hard to drive (engagement point pretty much on the floor), although it didn't affect the gear changes for me. Got back in the car after stopping, pulled the clutch back up with my foot, back to normal straight away. Now when I'm on the freeway I instinctively pull up on the pedal after I change into 6th gear for cruising.

Could be similar for you, but interesting that it made your gear changes harder

It possibly could be due to an overheating issue of the clutch fluid. Are the clutches vacuum boosted at all?