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In the mist of various fluid replacements, a minor emergency got me distracted, and the master cylinder for the clutch went dry and no doubt brought in some air into the lines.
(Same thing with the brakes but I got that squared away)
Anyways, I can't bleed the damn thing now, and been trying for 2 days.
I fill the reservoir with fluid, pump like mad, and nothing ever changes.
Tried gravity, conventional 2 man deal, vacuum, and reverse, still nothing happens. Pedal remains dead, and flops to the ground, reservoir levels don't change.
I disconnected some hoses, and found no blockage. The slave is certainly trying to draw in fluid, I can feel the vacuum on the hose when disconnected. The master cyclinder, appears as well to want to suck in fluid, but I can only test this in a limited manner, by placing a drop of fluid in the hole of a disconnected line, and watch it suck that fluid inside upon pedal movement.
The M/C and slave are very unlikely damaged, they worked great, and I was only aiming replacing a long due fluid change, and had no other reason behind this service job.
I'm out of ideas. My last move is to get a check vavle on the bleeder screw, and see what happens when I pump like crazy.
Now I haven't started the car since the whole ordeal. Does having the engine on do anything? I will replace the belts, and will see what happens I suppose tomorrow.
Well in case someone else has this issue. I think I solve it.
When the whole system is dry, the clutch needs the very fluid being sucked or forced out to pressurize itself. So your basically ensuring you'll never get results when you use the methods I mentioned- a bit self-defeating .
The only route is to use a pressurized bleed, such as motive power bleeder.
Where fluid under pressure in the reservoir is force out the bleeder, thus too pressurizing the system after the bleeder is closed.
Should be a easy fix now. Wish I knew this before spending so much time
I just experienced this clutch bleeding ordeal on our '03 Touring. Could not get any new fluid to move through the system after repeated pumping and trying a vacuum bleeder.
Turns out the free play adjustment rod and pedal was stopping the clutch master cylinder piston from moving all the way to it's rear to open the fluid port to the reservoir.
Make sure you adjust that rod in so the piston moves all the way back, then it's just a simple pump and hold old school bleeding procedure.
I just wanted to thank you HardRocker. I have been struggling with bleeding the clutch all weekend. The only thing that actually helped me was this post. I tried every bleeding technique possible. I adjusted the master cylinder adjustment rod three years ago and I never thought that doing that could stop me from bleeding the system. I decided to install a stainless steel master cylinder hose. After I installed it I had no pressure and the clutch pedal "sucked to the floor. No matter how many times I pumped the pedal it would not build up pressure.
Attention anyone bleeding you G35 or 350Z clutch. If your having trouble getting fluid to bleed ADJUST YOUR CLUTCH MASTER CYLINDER ADUJUSTMENT ROD!!!
I just wanted to thank you HardRocker. I have been struggling with bleeding the clutch all weekend. The only thing that actually helped me was this post. I tried every bleeding technique possible. I adjusted the master cylinder adjustment rod three years ago and I never thought that doing that could stop me from bleeding the system. I decided to install a stainless steel master cylinder hose. After I installed it I had no pressure and the clutch pedal "sucked to the floor. No matter how many times I pumped the pedal it would not build up pressure.
Attention anyone bleeding you G35 or 350Z clutch. If your having trouble getting fluid to bleed ADJUST YOUR CLUTCH MASTER CYLINDER ADUJUSTMENT ROD!!!
I headed to the same problem. I changed the stainless clutch line and got no pressure on the peadal, and it sucked to the floor, but the only thing different is when I open up the bleeder, the fluid came out, the fluid when through the system, just no pressure. Please help. I heard you are not suppost to adjust the rod, it will mess up the booster... My car is on the jack stand now, please help
I always go back to this post whenever I do hydraulics. So I did my clutch master and slave on two different occasions because I'm a slacker lol. Doing my slave cylinder today wasn't as easy as my experience with the clutch master. Removing my old slave the reservoir ran dry. Upon installing the new cylinder I discovered that the conventional way of bleeding wasn't effective after many tries. I took ideas from youtube for bleeding clutches but it still wasn't working for me
I came back to this post and took into consideration the pedal/rod adjustment to the master cylinder along with the reverse bleeding I picked up from my youtube searches and your individual experiences. I believe I got my master cylinder to bleed properly without touching the pedal the day I did it. SO I proceeded to do one round of conventional bleeding (depress clutch, open bleeder valve, close bleeder valve, lift pedal). While the pedal was up I went underneath and pressed the entire slave cylinder from where the clutch fork meets the cylinder rod. This should allow air to go back up to the reservoir. Did that about 2 more times. Then I had the clutch pedal depressed, bleeder valve opened, then closed. Pedal still depressed, I went back under, opened the bleeder valve and manually pressed the slave cylinder rod as best as I could to let possible air trapped in the slave. For good measure I did another round of conventional bleeding. That seemed to do the trick!
The key was to manually press the slave cylinder from the clutch fork to reverse bleed the upper system and the slave. Youtube videos suggested I had to remove the slave and push by hand, but the spring is just too powerful to press manually from underneath the vehicle on jackstands while operating the bleeder valve. The new master and slave cylinder change made a night and day difference in clutch feel. Well there you go. Hope this helps someone.
Originally Posted by MagicPie
In the mist of various fluid replacements, a minor emergency got me distracted, and the master cylinder for the clutch went dry and no doubt brought in some air into the lines.
(Same thing with the brakes but I got that squared away)
Anyways, I can't bleed the damn thing now, and been trying for 2 days.
I fill the reservoir with fluid, pump like mad, and nothing ever changes.
Tried gravity, conventional 2 man deal, vacuum, and reverse, still nothing happens. Pedal remains dead, and flops to the ground, reservoir levels don't change.
I disconnected some hoses, and found no blockage. The slave is certainly trying to draw in fluid, I can feel the vacuum on the hose when disconnected. The master cyclinder, appears as well to want to suck in fluid, but I can only test this in a limited manner, by placing a drop of fluid in the hole of a disconnected line, and watch it suck that fluid inside upon pedal movement.
The M/C and slave are very unlikely damaged, they worked great, and I was only aiming replacing a long due fluid change, and had no other reason behind this service job.
I'm out of ideas. My last move is to get a check vavle on the bleeder screw, and see what happens when I pump like crazy.
Now I haven't started the car since the whole ordeal. Does having the engine on do anything? I will replace the belts, and will see what happens I suppose tomorrow.
just did a fluid check on my car, and the clutch master is dry. wtf no leaks anywhere though. everything has felt fine. i have a pal with a boosted 03 and he constantly fills his up hes replaced the master and slave 30k prior and still fluid is leaking somewhere. common issue? when i pulled cap this clear cap is sitting loose inside the reservoir, as well as a sheath of some sort attached to cap. my car is hardly driven and 04 touring 81k
Guys, I figured something out by accident and it makes life much much easier. I ended up adjusting the clutch rod before doing this, but I'm 99.99% positive you *don't* need to adjust the clutch rod for this (if it is stock setting).
Buy a turkey baster from your local grocery store, suck out the reservoir, and unhook the hose from the reservoir. Hook the hand pump up to the reservoir hose. The plastic tip on that hand pump just so happens to be the perfect diameter for the hose.
Put the pump in a bottle of brake fluid and pump until you see the clear line filling up with fluid. Stop once it gets hard to pump, it means you're just building up pressure and it will blow a hose off if you don't (don't ask how I know).
Now go pump the clutch by hand and watch the fluid drain out of the hand pump line. The key here is that the pump provides just enough positive pressure to get the process started. Once you have forced fluid into the master cylinder, you should be able to bleed the clutch the conventional way. I only had to do maybe 12 iterations, which did not take "hours and hours" like I've heard a lot of people say. If you do it correctly, it shouldn't take more than 30-45 min.
I'm having a rough time with my new clutch install. Jwt clutch, as line etc.. Bled fine, worked well untill I parked the car for a while and no pedal... Bled it again (pump and bleed method) and it worked again for a short while... What could it be?
I'm having a rough time with my new clutch install. Jwt clutch, as line etc.. Bled fine, worked well untill I parked the car for a while and no pedal... Bled it again (pump and bleed method) and it worked again for a short while... What could it be?
While your car is sitting, air bubbles are migrating from your slave to your master. You need to keep bleeding the system until all the air is gone. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, then take it to a dealership and have them bleed it (preferably with some DOT4).
While your car is sitting, air bubbles are migrating from your slave to your master. You need to keep bleeding the system until all the air is gone. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, then take it to a dealership and have them bleed it (preferably with some DOT4).
Solved. Thank You for your tip. We switched to DOT4, pressurized the reservoir and bled as normal. Works great now! This forum rocks!
I ran into the same problem today on my G35. And with it being Sunday the options for finding a bleeder were limited. Oddly enough, I found a bleeder at Walmart for $7. Normally I wouldn't take this gamble but I went with it. And within 10 min. I had a completely sealed line.
The set comes with two types of lines. Connect the black tube into the intake side and use the orange hose as the discharge line and begin using the hand pump. It's just that easy.
I had a terrible time bleeding the clutch system after replacing the slave cylinder and hose. I read a couple threads here including this one where 'priming the slave cylinder' was suggested (but not described).. So I found this little bit that might help anyone having issues with bleeding the clutch system..
They first list steps for a similar bleed procedure as already described in this thread (push pedal, hold, bleeder screw open/close, repeat) then the slave cylinder prime/purge/bleed -
11. Now you will want to purge the slave cylinder of any air bubbles that might be trapped inside of it. 12. Grab the clutch fork and push towards the slave cylinder pushing the rod all of the way into the slave cylinder as far as it will go AND HOLD it in. 13. (You) open bleed valve and command helper to push the clutch down slowly purging any air that was trapped in the slave cylinder 14. (Helper) As soon as the pedal hits the floor command your bleeder monkey to close the valve before you let the pedal return from the floor.
Picture of my old slave cylinder but it shows the fork, slave cylinder components and bleeder valve
05-30-2009, 07:32 PM
Clutch will not bleed!!!
darn dry master
