On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 12:24:02 -0600 Harvey Chao said:
>Called at work yesterday morning by wife:  Stranded at kid's school parking
>lot,  clutch suddenly stopped working.  Made arrangements for her and vanagon.
> We are in the midst of our first real winter storm, it is pouring ...
>
>5 minutes after I hang up, phone rings from #1 son now living in LA.  "Dad -
>need advice, my car's clutch doesn't work".    So his car is at a shop -
>diagnosis, needs new clutch. ('87 Integra, about 70K miles) ...
>
>  "AARRRGGHHHH!"

now, this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Harvey's woes, but
it brings to mind some clutch stuff of my own:

one winter, at the first cold snap, my old 80 bus's clutch just went straight
to the floor! no clutch at all.

fix? replace the brake fluid. yup. it seems that as the fluid gets old and
full of crud, when the winter comes, the rubber seals here and there can get
cold and stiff and not flex as they ought to, and little pieces of crud can
get wedged under the seal ... and prevent any "sealing" action. so the fluid
just flows right on by. replacing the fluid by bleeding the system cured it
right up ... it was like a brand new clutch.

yet another reason to change your brake/clutch fluid regularly. :)

joel