earossi

For those of you that have done this job with the transmission mounted in the car, this is a royal PITA job. If the tranny is out of the car, it is about a 3 minute job to remove two 13 mm nuts and stab a new slave cylinder in place. With the tranny in the car, the cylinder sits on top of the tranny requiring a very long reach from below the car. And, since the cylinder is nestled right up against the car body, it is usually a one arm job that is made more complicated by the fact that you really cannot even see the cylinder as you are attempting to mount it on its two studs. There are three things that have to be simultaneously addressed in order to mount the cylinder. #1 - you have to be certain that the cylinder piston rod indexes into the clutch return lever. Since both the piston rod and the return lever are "loose" it is not an easy task to be certain that they are correctly aligned. #2 - You have to slide the cylinder mounting flange "squarely" over the two short studs that bolt it to the tranny case. and #3 - you must compress the spring that holds the cylinder piston rod extended as you slide the assembly into place. The problem is that the spring is encountered as you slide the cylinder into position BUT before it indexes onto the studs (the mounting flange really does not engage the two studs until you have almost fully compressed the spring).

Clearance issues around the cylinder just make things worse, since in most cases it is difficult to get more than a single hand in the area to do the assembly and when you do, you will find that you absolutely cannot view the area in which you are working. So, you are attempting to do this assembly single handed and essentially in the dark!

There are two items that need to be removed from the car prior to beginning the wowrk in order to clear the areas around the slave cylinder for access. First, remove the metal air duct (driver side) that connects the heat exchangers to the car's heating ductwork. Simply remove a hose clamp on either end of the pipe and then remove the pipe. Secondly, remove two bolts from the tranny case that attach a 4 inch bracket that secures a vent line in place adjacent to the slave cylinder. Slide the bracket up the vent line and out of the way, and then drop the vent line downward 2-3" to free up the area right at the slave cylinder.

Even with all the above work once completed for access to the area, I worked at trying to install a new slave cylinder for over an hour futilely attempting to stab the cylinder into place compressing the spring and capturing the two studs in one fluid motion without the ability to see what I was doing! This futile and wasted effort surely qualified as the perfect PITA job! I finally gave up.

If you have hung with me this far......there is a happy ending to this PITA job! If the mounting studs had been about 1 inch longer, you might have been able to slide the cylinder into place before having to compress the spring. To effectively provide a "lengthened" mounting stud, I decided to fabricate some slip over extenders for the mounting studs.

Well, I went to ACE hardware and purchased a 12" length of thin wall brass tubing. The tubing is sized perfectly to just slip over the slave cylinder mounting studs while still being able to slip through the mounting holes in the cylinder mounting flange. The tubing is 11/32" OD and has a wall thickness of 0.014". The label on the material I purchased identified it as made by K&S Engineering, Chicago, Il. The 12" part is labeled as "Stock #134". However, this is a standard item and should be easily sourced at a hardware store or hobby supplies center.

I cut two sections from the tube, each approximately 3" in length. Be sure to ream out the cut ends since the soft brass bends in on itself if you cut it with a tubing cutter.

Then simply slide the two short sections over the two existing mounting studs and then slide the new slave cylinder over the brass guide sleeves. You will find that the cylinder will now easily slide squarely into place over the mounting studs. As you slide it towards the mounting flange, slip a finger into the space between the cylinder and the clutch return lever to facilitate indexing the cylinder piston rod into the indent in the clutch return lever as you slide the cylinder into place. Be sure to put a dab of grease on the end of the piston rod so that the joint is well lubricated which eliminates a potential area for squeeks.

Once the return lever and piston rod are indexed, the slave cylinder will slide squarely and easily into place over the brass sleeves compressing the spring as it approaches the studs. Once the slave cylinder is in place and up against the mounting flange, simply hold the cylinder in place and slide the brass sleeves off the studs. Continue to hold the cylinder in place while starting one of the mounting nuts on a stud. With one nut run down finger tight, you can now install the other nut. Then simply torque the nuts down.

And, then as they say in the how-to-do-it manual: "assembly is simply the reverse of disassembly". Bleed the hydraulics and you are good to go for another 50k miles!

Hard to believe that two 3" long brass sleeves turned an hour of frustration into a 2 minute job (really)!

__

IXLR8

Here is a pic of those tubes installed over the existing studs.

Pictured are ones that were 3 inches long. They were then cut down to 2 inches to provide the necessary clearance for installation of the slave cylinder.

gary1101

Your timing is one day off. I did mine last night. I experienced all off the problems you did although I probably used more swear words. What i ended up doing was to push the cylinder into place and stick a block of wood behind the cylinder to hold it in place while threading on one nut. (NOTE: Your effectiveness of this task is diminished exponentially every time you drop the nut onto the back of the transmission.)

One advantage that i have is long arms. I was able to reach up to place the nut on the stud while looking through the suspension components to see what was happening. Doing it this way requires strong abs. (NOTE: Your effectiveness of doing it this way is diminished exponentially every time you drop the nut onto the back of the transmission.)

All in all it was a 2 hour exercise with only one knuckle bruised, my pride intact and two fewer beers in the fridge.

x98boardwell

Just reading some info on this job... extremely helpful insight! I did mine previously on my 04 996TT cab and I bet this idea could've helped there as well. Thanks again even though almost 5 years ago. My 993TT needs it

Coleman

Thanks all, I used this process and installed my new MPL Tuningparts slave cylinder and also installed a remote bleeder in the engine bay which will make clutch bleeding in the future much less painless ...

Though I don't call it a "slave" cylinder.. (Being Depeche Mode fan), I refer to it as the "Servant" cylinder

C/

LimeyBoy

Thanks for this idea, nice one.
I also just used this method last night to mount an MPL slave and while I never tried it without these brass helpers, I can understand what a pita it would be without these stud extensions. Took about 2 mins total while ensuring the slave rod was correctly in the clutch fork.