Confused with Clutch stuck 1999 Legacy Wagon 2.2L AWD

Ignorant here. My foot slipped off clutch last week at a stop light, and the pedal popped up quickly. At that point no power -- clutch still engaged, pedal halfway to floor and floppy. Crept to roadside at about 2 miles an hour.

 

Before that no clutch symptoms, and I had never looked at it.

 

I wiggled around the clutch fork a bit, then by pushing on the pedal popped it back from the floor. Clutch disengaged, clutch pedal came back up and everything seemed to work normally. No clutch slipping whatsoever as I drove carefully for several days near home. Then starting doing same thing about 5 times, and eventually each time I was able to disengage the clutch by quickly releasing pedal all the way from floor.

 

So I thought it must be a failing slave or maybe master cylinder. But I poked around and was confused. Couldn't see any master on firewall by clutch pedal, but I couldn't get to that area. I took off air control, and fiddled with clutch fork, finding one cable coming from pedal to back of fork, and another cable coming out of the front and slinking around to some sort of hydraulic cylinder on the driver's side in front of brake master (I think that's what it is). I thought that must be a clutch cylinder, but Aamco tells me there is no master or slave on this model. And I saw no leaking anywhere.

 

By the symptoms it seemed like a slave cylinder, but now I am even more confused. I noticed that the cable coming out of the front from the fork was not really attached to the fork, missing a bolt or cotter pin? Trying to get diagrams for this year (manufactured 1998, still Gen 2 I guess) but haven't been able to track them down.

 

So, what is this hydraulic component with a cable to the front of the clutch fork? Is there really no master/slave? And what gives with the clutch. I've burned out clutches before, but this either worked fine without slipping or was stuck mostly engaged.

thats a clutch brake, google it. its a thing that keeps your brakes on while the clutch is in like on a hill.

Thanks! Even the Aamco guy didn't know what that was. So without any master/slave cylinders, any ideas as to how a clutch gets stuck like I described?

It's more common names are "hill holder" and "hill assist"

 

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