Monaro clutch bleed
Discussion
Hello all, thought this might be useful. Lots of old posts on here about clutches refusing to bleed, to the point where you start to wonder whether the master cylinder coincidentally died while the new clutch was going in.
I changed mine 4 months and 8,000 miles ago, fitting a Tick remote bleed line and making a new section of copper pipe between master and slave cylinders. It was a total swine to bleed and I ended up fixing a skinny straw from a can of brake cleaner to a copper pipe, to the hose coming off my vacuum pump, and poking the straw down the tiny hole at the back of the clutch fluid reservoir. This had to be done a few times, raising the back and front of the car in the meantime to try and shift some air bubbles around. Eventually I got a rock solid clutch and all was well.
I recently decided to do a 'quick' fluid flush, opening up the bleed line and fixing the Mityvac to the end of it. So not neven relying on the one-way valve in the bleed line and not touching the clutch pedal. Result: baggy clutch pedal with about a quarter of its travel actually doing something. Back to the straw, and about a quarter of a litre of fluid, and the pedal was back to 100%. So for whatevever reason, my clutch will only bleed with a straw down the reservoir. Here's what I used, but I'm guessing if you have a syringe that you can fix to the straw, that will work too. In future I'm going back to the old method of keeping the fluid clean: pump the clutch a few times and syringe it out of the reservoir. But I DO have a fancy remote bleed line and that's what matters eh!
I changed mine 4 months and 8,000 miles ago, fitting a Tick remote bleed line and making a new section of copper pipe between master and slave cylinders. It was a total swine to bleed and I ended up fixing a skinny straw from a can of brake cleaner to a copper pipe, to the hose coming off my vacuum pump, and poking the straw down the tiny hole at the back of the clutch fluid reservoir. This had to be done a few times, raising the back and front of the car in the meantime to try and shift some air bubbles around. Eventually I got a rock solid clutch and all was well.
I recently decided to do a 'quick' fluid flush, opening up the bleed line and fixing the Mityvac to the end of it. So not neven relying on the one-way valve in the bleed line and not touching the clutch pedal. Result: baggy clutch pedal with about a quarter of its travel actually doing something. Back to the straw, and about a quarter of a litre of fluid, and the pedal was back to 100%. So for whatevever reason, my clutch will only bleed with a straw down the reservoir. Here's what I used, but I'm guessing if you have a syringe that you can fix to the straw, that will work too. In future I'm going back to the old method of keeping the fluid clean: pump the clutch a few times and syringe it out of the reservoir. But I DO have a fancy remote bleed line and that's what matters eh!
Before I had a remote bleed, I used the 'pump and suck' method to remove soot from the reservior.
Since then, I've used a standard one way value brake bleeding kit. It only takes 2 or 3 pumps to completely empty the reservoir, so one has to be careful to refill.
I still check that the fluid is all clean by pumping the pedal 10 - 20 times and peering in to the reservoir once I've bled it as well.
Maybe the system just doesn't like being sucked !!
Since then, I've used a standard one way value brake bleeding kit. It only takes 2 or 3 pumps to completely empty the reservoir, so one has to be careful to refill.
I still check that the fluid is all clean by pumping the pedal 10 - 20 times and peering in to the reservoir once I've bled it as well.
Maybe the system just doesn't like being sucked !!
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