I had to bail on a road trip to Colorado for New Years, but my friends were counting on my car so I let them take it. After sitting in a resort parking lot for two weeks, when they started it, the slave cyclinder of the clutch had failed. This is a bit odd because I had just had it replaced within the last 6 months.

They got it towed to the nearest town and found a shop that was able to replace the cylinder. They drove to their hotel, but in the morning the clutch had so much air in the line that it was almost impossible to shift. They tell me they "sort of forced it" into gear to get it back to the shop so the line could be bled.

The car made it back to California with the bled clutch, but somewhere in there, the whole shifter has rotated forward, such that in gear 1 and 3 your hand bumps the console, and in 2 and 4 the stick is almost straight up in the air. The reverse collar sticks up in all positions.

What is the likely culprit here? And is there anything that could be putting extra strain on my slave cylinder and causing it to fail in such a short time frame?