Years ago, the plastic clutch pedal in my Volvo 740 broke where the pivot meets the master cylinder cleavis. Cool. I put a huge bolt through the pedal with some epoxy and a band clamp and drove it for a decade before the epoxy broke and I had to redo the assembly. At least that time it failed in the driveway.
Last week after a long slog through stop and go traffic, I thought the clutch was feeling clicky... like something was catching on the pedal. The next day I investigated, and after pumping the clutch a few times, it the pedal gave a pop sensation and went limp. A glance under the car showed the slave cylinder piston pushed out of the cylinder with a giant splat of hydraulic fluid. I gently reseated the piston, and to my surprise, the clutch works fine, though I have a new slave cylinder on order, as I think this means that there is a small air leak or contamination in the bore and I will be inconvenienced in the future if I don't get on it.
Of course, ordering parts was not straight forward. There's still a parts shortage from the supply chain problems, and there's mysterious gaps in the old-Volvo aftermarket parts catalogs. For some reason, IPD didn't list any cylinders for my specific model year. There are multiple types of clutch release arms, but the hydraulic ones are mysteriously hard to find. I want a clutch pedal I can trust to step on, but the OE plastic ones are seemingly no longer made, so you're on the hook for making your own or buying a metal one from europe.
