Wachuko

<img border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" title="" src="graemlins/cussing.gif" /> I have been trying to bleed the clutch without any luck. Yes, I have a power bleeder, new master and slave cylinders, new blue hose (everything from Paragon)...

I am into my second bottle of brake fluid and the clutch pedal will still go to the floor!!!! <img border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" title="" src="graemlins/cussing.gif" />

The car is higher in the back (from suggestions I found here). I checked all connections are they are tight...

Bleed, bleed, bleed, pump pump pump and nothing...

That is it!! I will take a break and go for a ride with the family. Will continue to work putting the transmission back in the car and try to tackle the clutch again next week.

Dave in Chicago

I don't know about the "car high in the back" part, never done that.

I HAVE allowed air into the clutch before. The cure was to fill the reservoir all the way, attach tube/bottle to clutch slave bleed valve, and to open it up. You'll need to let it "gravity bleed" for a good 30 minutes or so. It is painfully slow to watch (drip, wait, drip, wait), but it seems to do the trick.

After closing up the bleeder, I went back to the powerbleeder (hook up, pressurize, bleed at slave as normal), THEN had the wife sit in the car for the traditional push/open/hold/close sequence. We did this maybe 5 times to see no air. After that, all was peachy.

I believe the slow gravity bleed is the key here, allows air to naturally displace from the fluid. Anyway, worked for me and I trust this will work for you. Good Luck.

IceShark

That clutch is a bitch since the bleeder nipple isn't at the top and air gets trapped in the slave.

If you introduce air into the system the best way to do is have the slave free. Fill it with fluid. Holding the slave vertical, put your thumb over the delivery line. Have a helper fill the reservoir and push fluid through the whole line. Then quick screw the hard line into the slave. This will be sort of messy so don't wear a dress shirt. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Let things sit for awhile so any air in the hard line floats back up. You should be OK.

WillyC4S

Jaime,

I did this last year and blew through 1.5 liters of the Super Blue trying to figure a consistent method to use for clutch bleeding. Here's what I found to work:

You have to use BOTH the power bleeder as well as manually pumping the clutch. Initially I did it the way you did, just using the bleeder alone. Everytime after the bleed the clutch pedal was weak and dropped to the floor. I was scratching my head wondering what the hell I did wrong.

Then one time when I had the power bleeder hooked up to the brake fluid reservoir, I noticed that as I pumped the clutch, air bubbles would form in the reservoir and the clutch pedal got stiffer (i.e. no air bubbles). I suppose what happened was that air got into the section of the clutch cylinder and was not bled out by the bleeder; you had to manually push this air bubble out via pumping the clutch.

Have a friend pump the clutch to remove any air bubbles first (w/ the power bleeder attached and pressurized) and then while simultaneously using the power bleeder as you loosen the bleed nipple have the friend pump and hold the clutch down (like you would normally bleed the brakes manually). Do this a few times and this should solve your problem.

I actually saw this recommended in the Porsche factory repair manual but didn't give any heed to it until AFTER I stumbled onto the method of using both pumping and power bleeding together. It was a minor note that had a major impact.

Hope this helps.

*****

Edit: Actually just read Dave's reply and it seems he came to the same conclusion I did; for clutch bleeding you need to do both manual and power bleeding.

Dave in Chicago

Oh, and if you don't already do so, disconnect the negative battery terminal. I use to cowboy that part until I made nice (unplanned) contact with the electical bits on the starter while manipulating that little 7 or 8 mm box wrench around the clutch slave bleed valve. POP!

Yup, that woke me up...

TIMM BALDAUF

I did mine last weekend,with the pwr bleeder hooked up & the clutch pedal "stuck" to the floor.
Bleed the system.
The whole thing took all of five minutes.Pulled
the pedal up & pushed it down,perfect pedal!

pete944

I did the whole thing, too and it couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 minutes to bleed. Search my old posts, I wrote up the procedure I used.

User 41221

wow... two guys doing it under 15 minutes? What am I doing wrong? It took my 35 minutes+ the three times I have done it. I, too, used a combo of powerbleeder and manual bleed.

Regards,

Wachuko

Thank you all! I will give it a try during the week. I ended up installing the transmission instead.

Wachuko

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by 944pete:
<strong>I did the whole thing, too and it couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 minutes to bleed. Search my old posts, I wrote up the procedure I used.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I did, and I have the procedure. I had installed everything before reading anything since I thought it was going to be as simple as doing the brake bleeding... but noooo. So I went back and read the posts here. But still no luck.

I know it can't be a bad slave or master cylinder (both are new and not leaking fluid).

Since the car is apart and there is a lot of more work I can do I just decided to move on and tackle other areas. I installed the transmission yesterday and will do the cvj next along with changing the fuel pump check valve...

Tremelune

It'll annoy you to hear this, as I've got a new slave/master sitting on my desk, but there has been a recent thread about the FTE/*** cylinders from Paragon. I'm hoping it was a bad batch, or at least that they didn't look as brand-new perfect as the ones I recieved from Paragon.

I very much hope this is not your problem, or I'm out $150.

When you do the CV Joints, are you following someone else's procedure? I just started <a href="http://forums.rennlist.com/forums/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=018036" target="_blank">this thread</a> about my CV joints and I'm just about to look for what's going on. Maybe you could snap a few pics...