Okey dokey, I'm back with a short story and a few problems.

Story:
About a week ago I was backing out of the car port and felt a weak squishy pop when I pushed in my clutch. Then my clutch pedal hit the floor. When I drove away the pedal was limp and would hit the floor easily. On my way back it seemed like it was back to normal for a bit, then went limp again. I looked into it and tried to do exactly as Eric The Car Guy did in his video of the procedure here:
The problem started when I tried bleeding the slave. The Duralast bleeder took a 9mm wrench I didn't have and the OEM one took 8mm, I used 3/8s, then the master's brake fluid wasn't going anywhere, then it went back up the bleeder bottle and into the slave cylinder, then I pumped the clutch pedal too much, dried out the master, and then I heard that familiar squishy pop. From his video, I think I got that I had to open, push clutch to floor, close, repeat. That's wrong because it's not building any pressure, which is what's for clearing the system, right? I also took his emphasis on how tedious one-man bleeding was and was pacing back and forth pumping that clutch for like 45 minutes. So I got impatient.

This time the slave cylinder's piston literally popped out and after I went back and forth to Autozone for another and a 9mm wrench, I put the new one on, busted out my Haynes Repair Manual, tried it differently, and now all the air's out of the system.



Now my problem is I've got a leak, and my clutch still hits the floor.
Clutch:
After I bled the clutch, my pedal is still limp and hits the floor, and I'm afraid if I pump it I'll lose another slave. Is it OK to pump it, or will I screw something up? What made that piston pop was how much I pumped the clutch. Why? Was the air in the system what ruined it? Won't it happen again? I'd figure the pedal was supposed to stiffen up as I bled the system.

Leak:
I thought I broke another slave, but I noticed it was coming from the transmission: https://i.imgur.com/QQLNobP.jpg
My master wasn't losing fluid, so I check the oil: https://i.imgur.com/KlbBVt2.jpg
It looked like it was coming from here: https://i.imgur.com/GkPGCqk.jpg

The oil was at the high end of the two dots and much clearer. That plate for whatever reason did not have two bolts to hold it closed. Is that a source of the leak? Just closing it with two ought to fix this, right? Also why didn't it leak this badly before this clutch issue?


As far as I can tell my shopping list now includes two bolts for that plate to the transmission, and some oil. As for the clutch I'm clueless. All I know is both of my local Autozone's probably don't have any more slave cylinders, so I'll be hitting up O'Reilly's if this goes downhill.

I also know it sucks not having a car and going back to the bus again.

 

Before you buy another slave cylinder, are you sure your master cylinder is OK? When I was doing mine, I just bought both. Shipped from Rockauto for about $34, that way I only had to bleed it once. I would also rent a vacuum bleeder from the auto parts store. You should be able to bleed the system from under the hood in 15-20 minutes tops, and you are right there, so you can see when the master cylinder is getting low. It should take less than 2 small bottles of fluid to get the system completely bled out.
I'm not sure how your oil level has anything to do with your clutch issue, but if that is all the oil that is showing on your dipstick, you definitely need to add some now!

 

What I'm worried about is filling it up with the oil I've got on-hand just to waste it. I guess I could give it a shot.

 

I'm a bit confused, but you are using brake fluid in the clutch system, right?
It's different than the oil for your engine.

 

Yep! You're as confused as I am. I have no clue how the oil would suddenly become an problem when I'm dealing with a completely separate system that uses brake fluid. Sure enough though I'm leaking oil.

 

The oil leak is likely coming from the distributor, if the leak you showed is engine oil.

Is your clutch issue solved now?

 

I'm too afraid to touch the pedal since I don't want to bust another slave cylinder. I know it was hitting the floor still. I just closed the bleeder, left the reservoir full, and left it over night.
Shouldn't the pedal have stiffened up as I bled the system?

Isn't the distributor just electric? It looked like it was all seeping from that plate that closes the transmission to the engine from the bottom, near the oil pan. I'll check the transmission fluid too, but I'm still confused why this is happening now as well.

 

Yes.

Remove the black rubber dust boot adjacent to the slave cylinder (SC). Post a picture of the SC piston in contact with the clutch fork.

Did you follow the installation and bleeding instructions in the service manual?







Try to answer these questions: Is the leak you showed engine oil? If you swipe you a finger underneath the distributor where it meets the head, is there fresh oil on your finger?

 

I took the boot off:https://i.imgur.com/vWDb32O.jpg

It was seated. Ya know what it ended up being? That top line to the slave cylinder wasn't tightened down all the way down. I noticed after I wiped everything down, pumped the clutch a little, then saw fresh brake fluid from that top line. The oil was probably that low regardless of the whole clutch problem. I bled the clutch again, got every single last teeny tiny bubble out of it, topped off the oil with the rest I had on-hand, and everything's back to the way it was.

I guess it helps to have a couple quarts laying around, cause that saved me another two mile jog back and forth to Autozone. I remembered that my dad told me I had a slow leak months and months ago. It must have been the oil back then. I'm looking at that plate not having a couple bolts in it, because the oil's coming straight out of there. From the look of it, that plate provides enough of a gap between the transmission and the engine to create a minor leak like this. So I'll either put in an order for a couple of those along with some other stuff I need, or get them off another car next time I go to the junkyard.


Thanks for the help though dude.



Edit: Oh, I had another question though! Why the heck did that first slave cylinder piston pop out? That's ridiculous, right? Is it something I can get a refund over, or just a CORE?

 

What plate? The one picture of a possible engine oil leak appears to show oil coming from a higher location on the engine, such as the distributor. Post more pictures where you follow the oil trail. There's no plate that seals the gap between the engine and clutch housing.

 

I poked around the distributor a few times and only had dry grease on my finger.

I think the oily look around the top of the transmission and engine area was wet brake fluid mixed with all the gunky crap that's been stuck on that area for so long. When I kept pumping the first slave cylinder replacement, it popped and shot brake fluid all over parts around it. That was probably what caused that. I wiped it away and took some more pics:





Nothing's appeared after I cleaned the area a bit and took the pictures. So the leak is really that insignificant. It'd also explain how I've been able to drive for this long with the oil steadily leaking.

And here's the plate I'm talking about.

#1 and #16 here are what I'm thinking cause my oil leak. I need two of the bolts there. I think I remember #1 there hooking into the oil pan somehow, which I had to replace already.

 

Definitely replace the missing bolts for the cover, but that won't cause an oil leak. It's just the flywheel cover.

 

Hmmmm.... Well when I changed the oil pan, there were a couple bolts missing along it. I could grab some of those too at some point.

What sort of issue are these things normally? A loose gasket or something?

 

If it's leaking from the weep hole on the flywheel cover #16, that's a rear main seal if it's engine oil.

 

Have you identified an oil leak? Could be burning oil in the cylinders - rings, head gasket, valve seals

Leaks:
Oil pan, valve cover, VTEC solenoid gaskets

Distributor O-ring or internal seal

Front crank and cam seals, and rear main seal

 

Alright, after driving it around for awhile I took another look today and it looks like it's barely leaking from that weeping hole area. I'm going to keep gathering part numbers for every little odd and end that I need, then put an order in for the bolts needed on that flywheel cover. If that's not what fixes it, I'll look into some kind of liquid sealer before I do anything else.

 

This is a very likely source of your oil leak. All the bolts and studs/nuts are needed to keep the oil pan sealed properly.

Also torquing them out of sequence will also lead to leaks as will over torquing them as it squished the gasket out to where it doesn't seal.

Oil pans are one of the more sensitive gaskets to seal compared to some of the others.