First Post! Read back thru the every post I could find on clutch shifter problems. Heres my symptoms. First there seems to be good days and bad days. Some days after cranking up when I try to shift into first the car rocks like the clutch is not fully disengaged. Shifting to reverse gives a nice little grind. Shifting to first is almost impossible. I usually try to let the car warm up for at least 5 minutes before driving. Even on good days after 15 to 20 minutes of highway driving the problem occurs. The problem comes and goes. When I bought the car a year ago I had to replace the shifter cable and shifter because I broke the shifter trying to put the car in first, same problem I'm experiencing now. After replacing the shifter and cable had no problem, that was about 4k ago. The car had 76K on it when I bought it and now has 81K. I drive the car every day. Car has lost no fluid from the master cyl since purchased and is great from 1st to 2nd and on. I know I will eventually have to replace the clutch but would like to get another thousand out of it before I do. Should I try replacing the master and/or slave before pulling the clutch. Am going to try bleeding the clutch this weekend. Any advice?

Have you looked at your clutch pedal to see if it is the aluminum one?

Slave cylinder pushrod travel needs to be around 15/16". Do you have this much when you push in the clutch pedal?

A master cylinder can bypass if the seals are bad and still not lose any fluid.

Which engine/trans setup do you have? I had problems with my 85SE v-6 4spd where it would not go into 3rd/4th without a lot of fiddling. It was the shift lever where the cable attaches to the transmission. A pin had worn out and caused the sloppiness. I managed to find a new lever (no longer available from GM) but there is a fix for bad ones if needed.

Will it shift ok when the engine is not running?

Magnet should tell me if the pedal is aluminum, right? Shifts fine when not running. 86GT, standard V6 5 speed muncie. I'm hoping bleeding the clutch this weekend will help, but I doubt it. Kinda nice, the wife can't figure out how to drive it in this condition, I'm still driven every day.

If you've read every post you can find here related to clutch or shifting problems, then you'd know that there's a growing number of us who promote the use of ATF in the clutch hydraulic system. The reason we promote the use of ATF is because it improves the system's ability to disengage the clutch properly.

If you're going to bleed the system anyway, why don't you go the extra step and switch over to it?