I've had a leaky clutch slave cylinder for a few weeks now (refilling the reservoire every couple days). I finally got in there to replace it this weekend. Before I got the car it had sat for several years, so as a preventative I replaced the master as well. That went fine.

Then, with the old slave off the car, I opened the box with the new slave from IPD and, to my surprise, realised that it did not have a rubber boot or output shaft on it. I figured this was a mistake, so I waited until this morning to call IPD and request a boot & shaft.

Just got off the phone with IPD and was informed that new slaves, both from Volvo and their "other" supplier, have not come with boots for "at least 10 years."

Have any of you run into this problem? Any crafty solutions?

My old boot is shot, in pieces, and would offer ~0 protection.

I'm thinking:
- re-use the shaft
- get a rubber balloon
- punch a small hole in it to go over the shaft
- with the shaft fully retracted, position the balloon as necessary and secure it to the shaft with a small zip tie, so that
- when the shaft is extended the balloon will stretch accordingly.

basically a home-made boot out of a balloon. but I'm interested in hearing what anyone else has done.

(maybe the finger off a latex glove would work better?, or the finger off a nitrile rubber glove?)