I have a 98 4runner with the 3.4 v-6 with about 115,000 miles on it. About six months ago I was having trouble shifting into gear. It would only happen intermittently. I talked to 2 different shops and none of them could replicate the issue. They all said it sounded like the hydrolic system was bad. Since i was traveling I waited till I got home to take it into the shop. I had the slave and master cylinder replaced about four months ago. I am still having issues with the petal not returning. I have bled the system twice and had my mechanic do it 1 other time. There is no slippage in the clutch so what is going on? Could the new master cylinder or slave cylinder be bad or am I missing something here. There is no fluid loss as well. I am just getting tired of pulling the petal back up with my toe to shift and to get the cruise control to function. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

How far does the clutch pedal return on its own? Most of the way, or barely any at all?

 

I was having the same issue for a couple of months. In addition to it, my clutch was chattering badly and my clutch pedal was squeaky, so.....I just replaced my clutch (glazed and burned spots....) and looked at the slave and master cylinders. Both were OK. I ended up getting underneath the dash and sprayed the return spring ends (of the clutch pedal) and the middle liberally with white lithium grease....both the squeals and the pedal return problems are gone. I think that it was just the spring hanging up that was causing the issues. That being said, this summer I will pull that pedal out and replace the spring and bushing so that I don't have to worry about it for another 100K miles or so. Good luck - hope this helps...

 

Try disconnecting the clutch pedal from the pushpin to the master cylinder and see it is the return spring having issues (then lube if it is).

 

thanks for the replies. i am having problems with the spring squeaking when pressing down on the petal. I had one mechanic spray the spring with lube and it went away for awhile. It seems to be most prevalent when it is cold outside. I got in it the other morning to start it up and the petal was only about an inch above the floor. I got it started but had to yank it out of gear to get it into neutral so that I could pump the clutch pedal. After that it was a not returning completely for awhile but by the time I got to work it was working fine. It doesn't seem to shift into the gears as smoothly as I would like. It goes back to the mechanic who installed the master and slave on monday so hopefully he can figure it out. I wonder if it would just be worth changing out the clutch just to make sure thats not the problem. any ideas on how much that would cost me.

 

I had a similar problem and it was a bad clutch master cylinder. I would have to pull my clutch petal out every now and then until it finally just went bad. When the cylinder went bad, it happened very quickly. I was on a trip and had to tie a rope to the clutch petal so that I could pull it out as I shifted. My cylinder was so bad that fluid was obviously slipping past the seals in the cylinder.

I too have the squeaky clutch petal, it's been sprayed with a lot of grease and this seems to help some. I have replaced the small plastic bushing several times too...it's usually good for about two weeks and then cracks again.

Maybe that bushing is cracked and so your petal/return spring is somehow getting stuck on it? The petal assy. is pretty easy to pull out. It might be worth pulling to see if something is getting jammed. The plastic bushings that hold the spring seem to be prone to cracking.

 

Check out this thread about the squeaky pedal problem...I need to do this too...

 

Did it the other day... huge improvement for a mere $3. Now thats a deal