Hey y'all,

Let me preface with this. Before this whole debacle began, the flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, and slave cylinder all had less than 10K miles on it.

A couple weekends ago I decided to try and bleed the remaining air out of my clutch so shifts were 100% smooth as there was still just a tiny bit of squish in the pedal. I tried the MityVac method first, and after doing that, shifts felt better. The following day though, as I was driving, my shifts got noticeably heavier as if it felt that disengaging the clutch wasn't doing anything. The pedal felt fine, but the car would jump forward a tiny bit if you started it in gear with your foot to the floor.

I never tackled the master cylinder, but I had a new one I never got around to installing, so I slapped that in and also did the drill mod. I bled the clutch using the bleeder valve at the slave (the previous owner cut a hole in the floorboard right where the bleeder tap is) and doing the traditional pedal down, open bleeder, close bleeder, pull pedal up, fill reservoir as needed. I got it to a point where the clutch wasn't 100% firm, but it was better than it was before. I could somewhat shift into gear from a standstill. I tried bleeding the rest of the air all the way from there, but it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. In fact, it felt like it was getting worse. I did this on and off during my free times during the days I had, and it only seemed to get worse. Less and less fluid was being sucked in as I tried to bleed the system, and at this point I had gone through nearly 80 oz of brake fluid. It got to the point where if you wanted to drive, you had to start the car in gear to get rolling and float gears to shift. There was no way you could shift into gear from a standstill.

Something I'd like to note is that the pedal wouldn't get stiff at all during bleeding, but if you pumped the pedal multiple times with the bleeder closed, you could build enough pressure to where the pedal would be firm. But as soon as you start and run the car, the pedal sinks to the floor more and does virtually nothing.

If you disconnect the master cylinder line from the slave, the pedal is completely stiff and will not budge, meaning everything on that end of things was fine. I wondered if my slave cylinder was bad, so I just spent my free time dropping the transmission and replacing the slave again. The old one had some air in it but got stiff halfway if you pressed down on it (lines disconnected). So I slapped a new one in and put it all back together. I tried bleeding the system but I'm still at square one. Bleeding is futile, very little fluid is sucked into the system. I'm at a complete loss here. Does anyone have any input whatsoever? This makes zero sense to me.

TL;DR: New master, new slave, bleeding correctly, air not getting out of clutch. Clutch disengagement is virtually nonexistent. Don't know what to do.

Thanks.

 

Easiest way to bleed a clutch is to submerge the open bleeder hose into a container of fluid and pump away until all the air bubbles are gone.

You might have a leak somewhere that’s causing air to enter.

What did you set the air gap to on the new throwout bearing?

 

On these cars the slave cylinder and throwout bearing are the same unit. I didn't set any gap, I just put the new one in there and called it at that. That's how I did it the first time and it worked fine like that.

 

Still need to set the air gap no. If you don’t have enough space in between the bearing surface and fingers you will not get full clamping pressure causing slip. Not setting the gap could over extend the bearing and cause failure.

 

Good info. Still doesn’t explain the sudden cause of the issue and why it didn’t resolve with a new slave.

Anyways, I replaced the gasket for the master cylinder line and I think that likely did the trick, but I stripped the bleeder screw and dropped the new one in the bell housing. So I will be dropping the trans once again tomorrow. I’ll try bleeding it from the slave this time instead of the master.

 

If you're dropping transmission again, I highly recommend installing a remote bleeder. I bled my clutch in a minute by myself and that isn't an exaggeration. You will save yourself a headache.

What I did was attach some tubing to the remote bleeder and loop it around so it was facing the reservoir and it would dump into the reservoir. I zip tied it around the hood strut, placed the tubing into the reservoir, slightly cracked the bleeder, and jumped in my car and pumped the clutch repeatedly. I don't recommend doing it alone as you won't notice if the tube comes out of the reservoir, the tubing comes off the bleeder, etc. Then you'll have fluid spray everywhere. One person pumps the clutch and the other is under the hood cracking the bleeder and monitoring everything.

Not only does a remote bleeder make your life MUCH easier, but I also think it bleeds the system much more completely and reliably. You can keep the bleeder line vertically and it becomes the highest point in the system so air naturally will want to float up. One trick you might want to do is also close and slightly reopen the bleeder repeatedly while the other person is pumping the clutch. I noticed once bleeding my completely dry brake system using a motive power bleeder, closing and reopening the bleeder screw seemed to push more air bubbles out. Basically, I think this creates something similar to the MityVac method only in reverse.

 

I'll consider it. Right now, I have that hole in the floorboard where the bleeder valve is, so currently bleeding the clutch is a one-man job. It all turned out to be the gasket around the master line running to the slave that was giving me my hydraulic issues. The pedal is once again firm. However, the pedal still sinks when the car is started and running and clutch disengagement still isn't possible. I'm out of ideas, so I am going to measure the slave and pressure plate and see if shims are in fact needed. Neither the master nor the slave cylinder are bad.