I recently purchased a 93 sl1 with 189k on it, I bought it knowing it had problems, but I had seen that the half shafts was bad, anyway been driving it some and it started feeling like the clutch doesn't fully disengage, it shifts hard, grinds gears, tries to turn motor over when costing downhill with the clutch in and motor off. My question is is this a bad clutch or have people had problems with the master and/or slave cylinder

 

Generally when you have clutch problems, its best to just replace the whole thing. Patch repairs are expensive because they just don't last very long.

Your symptoms could be caused by issues with the master/slave cylinders. In a Saturn, you replace them as a single unit. There is another possibility though, something could have broken free inside the clutch, like a small piece of friction material, a damper spring or a small bolt or rivet and it has gotten stuck between the clutch plate and either the flywheel or pressure plate. When this happens, you can't fully release the clutch, even when the linkage/hydraulics are in perfect order.

The only way to know for sure is to remove the transmission and inspect the clutch, by this time, you might as well pay a few bucks more and just replace everything.

But before you do anything, remove the top of the master cylinder and if the fluid is all the way to the top, remove some of it and put the top back on. If that works, it will only be temporary as the clutch plate is about totally worn down.

 

Pulled the transmission and found broken release fingers