How To Install Clutch Video (Video Series Complete, Monster Level 1!)
04-21-2013, 07:09 AM
#21
I read that you had a bit of play for the first half inch or so... Did you bleed just that part?
If you're intent on staying with the stock master, it's shim time. Even though it passed the second time, it still seems a bit too close. You could offset the cost of the Tick by selling your master, since it's already got the drill mod and all done to it.
I fought for as long time against it as well. Research any of my old posts in the past and you'll see how much I tried to not get that thing... In the end though, I'm incredibly happy I did.
Reverse is still a bitch for me to get into. Never was before the clutch / master swap. I put in conventional Dex/Merc. After doing a bit of reading, it seems the 200-2002 or the 01-02 F-Bodies got the upgraded carbon blocking rings from the factory? Maybe I need to swap this out and go to a good synthetic.
Keep us updated on what you do.
If you're intent on staying with the stock master, it's shim time. Even though it passed the second time, it still seems a bit too close. You could offset the cost of the Tick by selling your master, since it's already got the drill mod and all done to it.
I fought for as long time against it as well. Research any of my old posts in the past and you'll see how much I tried to not get that thing... In the end though, I'm incredibly happy I did.
Reverse is still a bitch for me to get into. Never was before the clutch / master swap. I put in conventional Dex/Merc. After doing a bit of reading, it seems the 200-2002 or the 01-02 F-Bodies got the upgraded carbon blocking rings from the factory? Maybe I need to swap this out and go to a good synthetic.
Keep us updated on what you do.
04-21-2013, 10:51 AM
#22
Yeah, I think I'm gonna order the tick, I know they're great units, just hard to tell the wife another $300 is going to my car. There is also a possibility that the stock master cylinder may not have the power to push the heavy duty monster clutch pressure plate fingers in far enough. The clutch pedal is stiffer than with the stock pp. I may shim it and still have the same problem due to the stock master being too weak to disengage the pp all the way. I'm gonna post up part 2 of my video today and just explain that I am going to get a tick master to bring the clutch engagement point farther up to a more comfortable position and disengage the clutch a little more to be on the safe side. Plus my shifting will be better too!
Edit' I did try bleeding just the little bit at the top of the pedal that was soft. Bled it for quite some time but I still have that little half inch of play at the very top.
Edit' I did try bleeding just the little bit at the top of the pedal that was soft. Bled it for quite some time but I still have that little half inch of play at the very top.
Last edited by TheBlueKnight; 04-21-2013 at 11:21 AM.
04-21-2013, 03:23 PM
#26
I bled the clutch at first my traditional way. Push clutch pedal to the floor crack the bleeder a second, close the bleeder, slowly pull up clutch pedal back to top, rinse and repeat keeping the master cylinder resavior full at all times. After getting a nice firm pedal all the way to the top I took the car for a drive. It shifted decent, a little notchier than I liked but didn't have trouble getting into gears. Went and did the rev test and the car very slightly started to roll forward between 5-6k rpms.
Went back home and did research and found the stickied thread from Tick about how to bench bleed the master seperate while installed on the car, then connected it and bled the slave as described in the sticky. Once again, pedal felt great, was able to shift although it's a bit notchy at times, difficult to get in reverse. Went and did the rev test again. This time it passed but just barely. Pedal still releases really close to the floor and it's very hard to get into reverse. A few thousand miles before doing this install I had installed a brand new master and slave in an attempt to fix my shifting problems at 5k+ rpms, but shifted flawlessly at below 5k rpms. I'm no beginner to bleeding my hydraulics. I've pulled the master twice and slave once before this, including routine bleeds for general maintenance and never had an issue once with shifting. Reverse has always been easy to get into and now it's very difficult and all the gears are slightly notchy to get into, before and after Tick's bleed method.
From the clutch pedal being bled perfectly to Tick's recommendations and the clutch pedal being wonderfully firm and being able to shift ok, but the pedal engaging right off the floor and barely passing the rev test by the skin of it's teeth and the difficulty getting into reverse now, the throwout bearing just isn't extending far enough to disengage the clutch where it should.
I don't blame anyone. There are variances in all cars, mine just happened to be a rare case where it needed a shim or adjustable master to get it to work 100%. My brother with the stock master with drill mod just like me just got this clutch a few months ago and his is good. But on the other end of the stick, I did a bunch of searching last night and found a good chunk of guys who installed a Monster Clutch and had the same instance as me where the clutch was releasing very close to the floor. Again, rare, but it can happen. I'll just get the Tick Master and adust it to extend the throwout bearing farther to disengage the clutch more.
For now it's fine. I'm able to drive the car and shift normally. It's just disengaging almost right off the floor, difficult to get in reverse, and it's a bit notchier to get into gears than before which over a long period of time will start to wear out my tranny. I can either shim the slave or get an adjustable master, and I'm sure as hell not dropping the tranny again
Plus the Tick master will improve my shifting and let me set the engagment point to a more comfortable position. Last edited by TheBlueKnight; 04-21-2013 at 03:37 PM.
04-21-2013, 05:07 PM
#27
Video series is finished. Part 2 of 2 complete and posted in the original post, enjoy 
Edit* Went to the store yesterday night and got some different fluid just to rule anything funky out. Bled it again, love that Tick bleed method, works extremely well! Got a nice firm pedal all the way to the top. Went for a drive and everything is still the same. Went and did the rev test for a third time. It just barely fails and slowly starts creeping forward at redline so it's right on the cusp of passing but just needs that extra few mm's to fully disengage it. Ordering the Tick Master now...
Edit* Went to the store yesterday night and got some different fluid just to rule anything funky out. Bled it again, love that Tick bleed method, works extremely well! Got a nice firm pedal all the way to the top. Went for a drive and everything is still the same. Went and did the rev test for a third time. It just barely fails and slowly starts creeping forward at redline so it's right on the cusp of passing but just needs that extra few mm's to fully disengage it. Ordering the Tick Master now...
Last edited by TheBlueKnight; 04-22-2013 at 12:09 PM.
04-24-2013, 05:15 PM
#28
Thought I'd report back with a bit of news myself...
Since I've done the Tick Master and Monster stage 2, I've had a hell of a time getting into reverse. That, and I've noticed my trans being notchy as all get-out. Well this thread jogged my memory about a few things:
1) I'm a lazy bastard and haven't put the plastics back on up underneath the dash.
2) I was so damned worried about overextending the pressure plate I've left my pedal about a 1/2" lower than the brake.
Anyways, I got back to the heliport on Tuesday after my obligatory 14 days on the rig. This thread reminded me of a few things, as stated, so I decided to play around a bit with the adjustment of the tick. I adjusted it "almost" level with the brake pedal.
Guess what? Reverse is now easy to get into like before, and the notchiness of the trans is gone.
Just some food for thought. That thing is worth every penny. An expensive *** penny, but definitely worth it in my mind.
Since I've done the Tick Master and Monster stage 2, I've had a hell of a time getting into reverse. That, and I've noticed my trans being notchy as all get-out. Well this thread jogged my memory about a few things:
1) I'm a lazy bastard and haven't put the plastics back on up underneath the dash.
2) I was so damned worried about overextending the pressure plate I've left my pedal about a 1/2" lower than the brake.
Anyways, I got back to the heliport on Tuesday after my obligatory 14 days on the rig. This thread reminded me of a few things, as stated, so I decided to play around a bit with the adjustment of the tick. I adjusted it "almost" level with the brake pedal.
Guess what? Reverse is now easy to get into like before, and the notchiness of the trans is gone.
Just some food for thought. That thing is worth every penny. An expensive *** penny, but definitely worth it in my mind.
04-24-2013, 05:46 PM
#29
Hey good to hear. I can't wait to get mine, I ordered it a few days ago. Not sure how long shipping takes. Today is two days since I ordered it but my account at Tick still says "awaiting shipment". I'm very excited. I've been having shifting problems ever since I bought the car and I'm so close to it finally being over. I'm suprised that reverse was hard for you to get into and shifting was really notchy but you didn't adjust the Tick master at that point just to see if it would fix that. Was it just too worrisome at that point that you might over extend the PP so you left it that way?
On a side note, you bled it at it's lowest adjustment point (pedal adjusted as close to the floor as it can be adjusted), and then once it's bled good and you have a nice firm pedal then start adjusting up until the shifting gets good right? I'm assuming I'll end up adjusting mine right at about brake pedal height as well. Honestly can you even adust it much farther than the height of the brake pedal or is that about it? I heard the tick has much less travel than the stock master. (not that it's a bad thing).
Oh, and when you bleed just the top inch that's squishy do you just crack the bleeder and press the clutch pedal down just the inch that's squishy, then close the bleeder and pull it back up from that 1 inch point? Or do you crack the bleeder and push the clutch pedal down the one inch and shut the bleeder at that one inch point, but keep pushing down the clutch pedal to the floor and then pull it back up?
Oh, one more thing. When you had the pedal adjusted too low and shifting was notchy and reverse was hard to get in, did you do the rev test at all when it was like that? I'm wondering if it would have failed the rev test then because obviously the clutch wasn't being disengaged good enough to get into gears easily or reverse. I know right now with my stock master engaging so close to the floor reverse is really hard to get into and all the other gears feel pretty notchy to shift into and it failed the rev test just barely so that's why I ask.
On a side note, you bled it at it's lowest adjustment point (pedal adjusted as close to the floor as it can be adjusted), and then once it's bled good and you have a nice firm pedal then start adjusting up until the shifting gets good right? I'm assuming I'll end up adjusting mine right at about brake pedal height as well. Honestly can you even adust it much farther than the height of the brake pedal or is that about it? I heard the tick has much less travel than the stock master. (not that it's a bad thing).
Oh, and when you bleed just the top inch that's squishy do you just crack the bleeder and press the clutch pedal down just the inch that's squishy, then close the bleeder and pull it back up from that 1 inch point? Or do you crack the bleeder and push the clutch pedal down the one inch and shut the bleeder at that one inch point, but keep pushing down the clutch pedal to the floor and then pull it back up?
Oh, one more thing. When you had the pedal adjusted too low and shifting was notchy and reverse was hard to get in, did you do the rev test at all when it was like that? I'm wondering if it would have failed the rev test then because obviously the clutch wasn't being disengaged good enough to get into gears easily or reverse. I know right now with my stock master engaging so close to the floor reverse is really hard to get into and all the other gears feel pretty notchy to shift into and it failed the rev test just barely so that's why I ask.
Last edited by TheBlueKnight; 04-24-2013 at 05:58 PM.
04-24-2013, 06:47 PM
#30
Lots of "one more things" lmao!! I'm gonna answer these in order, hopefully.
I was worried about the overextending thing, but after a good talk with Martin (AWESOME guy) I felt fine taking it to brake height.
When I bled, I bled it at brake height, as I was told from Tick.
To get a pedal to begin with, I took the entire fitting off the end if the speed bleeder and put it in a mason jar that was half full of DOT4. I didn't do the "bench bleed". It's kind of pointless if you do it me way. Once I had a pedal I put the fitting back on and backed it off a half turn or so till fluid came out. Again, still in the mason jar as I'm paranoid.
Leading into your one inch bleed Q: the speed bleeder has a check valve. It'll let fluid OUT, but nothing IN. I had the mason jar in the cabin with me. (I used a mason jar cause its clear. Anything clear will work) and yes, just pumped the squishy portion of it. Over and over and over, quickly, till it was firm. At that point I torqued down the fitting. Again, ONLY pump the inch or so that is squishy. No farther.
Last paragraph: I did the rev test and passed no problem. It's a feel thing. 2-3 and 3-4 was notchy as ****. I honestly believe it's all about pedal travel. You've GOT to move some fluid. A half inch below the brake wasnt cutting it. Just a "hair" below was perfect.
Word to the wise: don't put all the plastics back and torque the jam nuts till you're certain everything is perfect. Like me, lol.
I was worried about the overextending thing, but after a good talk with Martin (AWESOME guy) I felt fine taking it to brake height.
When I bled, I bled it at brake height, as I was told from Tick.
To get a pedal to begin with, I took the entire fitting off the end if the speed bleeder and put it in a mason jar that was half full of DOT4. I didn't do the "bench bleed". It's kind of pointless if you do it me way. Once I had a pedal I put the fitting back on and backed it off a half turn or so till fluid came out. Again, still in the mason jar as I'm paranoid.
Leading into your one inch bleed Q: the speed bleeder has a check valve. It'll let fluid OUT, but nothing IN. I had the mason jar in the cabin with me. (I used a mason jar cause its clear. Anything clear will work) and yes, just pumped the squishy portion of it. Over and over and over, quickly, till it was firm. At that point I torqued down the fitting. Again, ONLY pump the inch or so that is squishy. No farther.
Last paragraph: I did the rev test and passed no problem. It's a feel thing. 2-3 and 3-4 was notchy as ****. I honestly believe it's all about pedal travel. You've GOT to move some fluid. A half inch below the brake wasnt cutting it. Just a "hair" below was perfect.
Word to the wise: don't put all the plastics back and torque the jam nuts till you're certain everything is perfect. Like me, lol.
04-24-2013, 06:48 PM
#31
My stock master was doing the same thing. Just couldnt extend the PP far enough it didnt fail the rev test but engaged very closely off the floor. I did the tick and it took it all away.
Fwiw you really have to push the PP far to over extend it. I have the the pedal adjusted level with the brake pedal and it catches around 2/3 of the way up and no issues
Fwiw you really have to push the PP far to over extend it. I have the the pedal adjusted level with the brake pedal and it catches around 2/3 of the way up and no issues
04-24-2013, 07:03 PM
#32
My stock master was doing the same thing. Just couldnt extend the PP far enough it didnt fail the rev test but engaged very closely off the floor. I did the tick and it took it all away.
Fwiw you really have to push the PP far to over extend it. I have the the pedal adjusted level with the brake pedal and it catches around 2/3 of the way up and no issues
Fwiw you really have to push the PP far to over extend it. I have the the pedal adjusted level with the brake pedal and it catches around 2/3 of the way up and no issues
Lots of "one more things" lmao!! I'm gonna answer these in order, hopefully.
I was worried about the overextending thing, but after a good talk with Martin (AWESOME guy) I felt fine taking it to brake height.
When I bled, I bled it at brake height, as I was told from Tick.
To get a pedal to begin with, I took the entire fitting off the end if the speed bleeder and put it in a mason jar that was half full of DOT4. I didn't do the "bench bleed". It's kind of pointless if you do it me way. Once I had a pedal I put the fitting back on and backed it off a half turn or so till fluid came out. Again, still in the mason jar as I'm paranoid.
Leading into your one inch bleed Q: the speed bleeder has a check valve. It'll let fluid OUT, but nothing IN. I had the mason jar in the cabin with me. (I used a mason jar cause its clear. Anything clear will work) and yes, just pumped the squishy portion of it. Over and over and over, quickly, till it was firm. At that point I torqued down the fitting. Again, ONLY pump the inch or so that is squishy. No farther.
Last paragraph: I did the rev test and passed no problem. It's a feel thing. 2-3 and 3-4 was notchy as ****. I honestly believe it's all about pedal travel. You've GOT to move some fluid. A half inch below the brake wasnt cutting it. Just a "hair" below was perfect.
Word to the wise: don't put all the plastics back and torque the jam nuts till you're certain everything is perfect. Like me, lol.
I was worried about the overextending thing, but after a good talk with Martin (AWESOME guy) I felt fine taking it to brake height.
When I bled, I bled it at brake height, as I was told from Tick.
To get a pedal to begin with, I took the entire fitting off the end if the speed bleeder and put it in a mason jar that was half full of DOT4. I didn't do the "bench bleed". It's kind of pointless if you do it me way. Once I had a pedal I put the fitting back on and backed it off a half turn or so till fluid came out. Again, still in the mason jar as I'm paranoid.
Leading into your one inch bleed Q: the speed bleeder has a check valve. It'll let fluid OUT, but nothing IN. I had the mason jar in the cabin with me. (I used a mason jar cause its clear. Anything clear will work) and yes, just pumped the squishy portion of it. Over and over and over, quickly, till it was firm. At that point I torqued down the fitting. Again, ONLY pump the inch or so that is squishy. No farther.
Last paragraph: I did the rev test and passed no problem. It's a feel thing. 2-3 and 3-4 was notchy as ****. I honestly believe it's all about pedal travel. You've GOT to move some fluid. A half inch below the brake wasnt cutting it. Just a "hair" below was perfect.
Word to the wise: don't put all the plastics back and torque the jam nuts till you're certain everything is perfect. Like me, lol.
I was thinking the other day about why the stock self adjusting GM pressure plates lock people out of gear. I know a few guys have hypothesized that at high RPMS maybe the PP fingers are getting sucked inward and the throwout bearing can't reach the fingers or push them far enough to fully release the clutch because they are being sucked in. But I can't imagine that being the case as when I had my stock and Monster pressure plates out and on the ground, I pushed on some of the fingers pretty hard and they wouldn't budge. I doubt they are being sucked in that easy just by centrifugal force. My only thought from that thinking is that somehow whatever self adjusting mechanism that stands between the PP fingers and the pressure plate itself must start failing from the increased centrifugal force at 5k+ rpms and fail to let the PP fingers pull the actual pressure plate far enough away from the clutch disc.
Does anyone know what the self adjusting mechanism is that bridges the gap between the PP fingers and the pressure plate itself? If it's a spring mechanism of somesort I can see how the springs might become altered by the centrifugal forces at 5k+rpms. Then you would think that the PP fingers are being pushed in far enough by the throw out bearing, but the self adjusting mechanism is what gets screwed up by the high centrifugal force and basically wimps out and can't pull the PP from the clutch disc all the way.
Last edited by TheBlueKnight; 04-24-2013 at 07:16 PM.
