4.5 clutch bleeding

[Mike Horne]

My 4.5 is crunching into reverse and the forward gears aren't exactly smooth to engage either...the car has had a new clutch fitted with next to zero miles on it, anyone any thoughts? Bleeding the clutch was my first thought?

[m4tti]

On the tuscan which has floor mounted pedals there's an adjustable travel stop. Are the cerbera pedals floor mounted. If so you can wind it in a couple of mm.

Have you tried going from 3rd, to 4th, 5th then reverse. Third has a stronger synchro.

[jamieduff1981]

Yeah I'd bleed it first and see what happens. Do you know where the bleed hose is?

Worst case scenario is that you have one of the odd bellhousings that need the slave cylinder mounting flange face machined down a tad to allow a standard slave cylinder to stroke far enough to disengage the clutch.

[LincsCerb]

Hi reverse hasn't got synchromesh so always engage 5th first then go to reverse.
Best method I have found to bleed the clutch is to use a Gunson Eezi bleed does a great job of getting all the air out, just don't use more than 15psi.

[thefrog]

Mike Horne said:

My 4.5 is crunching into reverse and the forward gears aren't exactly smooth to engage either...the car has had a new clutch fitted with next to zero miles on it, anyone any thoughts? Bleeding the clutch was my first thought?

When I did mine (see below), I used a Sealey vacuum bleeder (connects to a compressor) and didn't get it right first time, spongy pedal and air left in the lines, it worked a lot better with the clutch pedal engaged second time round.

Also, I had a similar problem to yours with mine, replaced clutch + slave, only to realise the master cylinder had had it ! There were no bits of seal floating about, nor did I have a leak inside the car, but when I had taken the gearbox/clutch/etc... off, there was lots of fine black dust at the bottom of the master cylinder (the fluid was also brown rather than clear which I just put down to age).

Might be worth replacing the master cylinder if a bleed doesn't sort it out.