I think it was mad at me
While not TECHNICALLY my first car…I drove a 1995 Mitsubishi Diamante for a few months before my Dad and I went in together on my dream car…my 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT SL. Sure I wanted the VR-4, but to date I’ve still never even RIDDEN in a VR-4 The SL was and is a great car in its own right. I drove everywhere in it my first two years driving until my Dad bought out my share of the car when I was 18. Fast forward 12 years and Dad finally got his Corvette and asked if we wanted to buy it from him. The timing was perfect, as Charlotte wanted to learn to drive stick and wanted a summer car. She drove it summer of 2016 as well as summer of 2017 but it was functionally replaced by the M3 in late 2017.
The car was rolled in and out of the shop for the next 3 years as we worked on the shop but it mostly just sat waiting. I decided I should drive the car some this year and decided I’d start doing that once I had to get it out of the way of the shop AC install. Unfortunately when the time came the car had other plans. I guess it was grumpy about me leaving it sit!
So…we got to push it around again! The pedal going the the floor generally means a failed master or slave cylinder on a hydraulic clutch setup like the 3000GT uses. To start I ordered a slave cylinder as it is a fairly easy job to replace. I swapped out the slave cylinder but no change. Next up was the master cylinder. This is a much larger job to do especially on the 3000GT as it is buried on the firewall behind the strut tower, behind the brake booster, and under AC lines.
Step 1 was getting the clutch line broke free from the master cylinder. To accomplish this I loosened the AC lines from their brackets and pushed them out of the way a bit by stuffing a towel behind them and the strut tower then used a crowfoot wrench with a couple extensions and a long needle nose pliers.
Step 2: With the clutch line removed from the master cylinder I now had to unbolt the master cylinder from the firewall and remove the clutch pedal from it. To accomplish this I removed the driver’s seat and laid on my back which gave me plenty of access to work under the dash.
With everything unbolted there was JUST BARELY enough room to snake it out.
Installing the replacement was the reverse of removal. Hooked everything up and things pretty much immediately seemed better. Charlotte helped me bleed the clutch and we were ready for a test drive.
