shmark

Wow what a bear. My car has the "engine in" option which makes this a royal pain to do, but I'm on the downhill side now. Last week I pulled the brake master, tried a bunch of things suggested here, and finally came to the conclusion there was no way I could get to the clutch master without removing the brake booster. No big deal, right. Well this afternoon I've been in the footwell and back under the hood about a dozen times and finally figured out how it works and the brake booster is out! Then I fished the clutch master out the bottom of the car with the hard line still attached and there it sits on my garage floor, defeated. Finally. I win.

Now everything gets easy, it's just reassembly from this point. I'm going to regret saying that.....

largecar379

Congrats to you----

it took me three hours of wrestling with C master, and managed to R&R it without removal of the brake booster......I would have removed the booster, but----


just be sure when you get it all back in, you use the power bleeder while pumping the clutch pedal to remove all of the air in the system.....


best of luck--

--Russ

worf928

Do yourself a favor and get a helper. Have the helper hold the CMC in place while you bolt it in.

hacker-pschorr

I did a clutch master with the engine & brake booster in. Next time I will pull the motor.

shmark

Well the new clutch master is in and I managed it by holding on to it from inside the car and carefully putting the bolts in. Whoever designed that attachment system had too much meisterbrau that day. Bracket, spacers, washers and bolts need a prehensile 4-handed monkey to do it, but I managed it alone. Then I replaced the flex line to the slave and bolted up the new slave too, only to hit a brick wall.

Did I mention that my blue hose was clapped out? And that there were no hose clamps on it? There's my recurring theme of little things just missing on this car. I've got a bunch of hose clamps, but none small enough. Crap. Stopped by a 20-cent part.

I'll hit the store on the way home tomorrow and pick them up. Man I can't wait to drive my car again.

largecar379

the infamous blue hose did not come with clamps.

it is, however, a good idea to put some on each end, since you've gone this far to get things right. without them, 10 psi with the power bleeder is as high as you would want to go......


--Russ

shmark

Seems silly if it never had them, but it's going to have them tomorrow! And yes, power bleeder flushing everything with Ate blue. It's going to be right when I'm done. My back hurts.

RyanPerrella

I originally got into the clutch hydraulics to replace the blue hose. I found it difficult to remove but impossible to install. This was with the engine out of the car mind you.

I decided that since i was here i would just replace the master cylinder and before doing so i put the blue hose on the master cylinder and installed it. That is a real pain to install.

I think it should be suggested to anyone thats doing a clutch master install to put the blue hose on the MC first before trying to get the thing installed in the firewall.

I remember the hard line to the master cylinder was fairly straight forward.

Bleeding the system is another fun process!

ROG100

Just another good reason to move up to an Automatic
Nice job Mark.

Mako 928

Not to rub salt in the wound but it can be done with out removing the brake booster. This is only my experience on MY 85. Did this 3 years ago the 2 hardest things is removing the clutch master, it is one of those things you just have to work the angle of it to get it out. The other is the rod assembly I did have my daughter hold it while I was in the car re attaching it but other wise it can be done.

worf928

I've replaced a handfull of the blue hoses and not once did the old one come off either the MC or reservoir. Each time I had to slice it to get it off. It would seem that once it's on there it doesn't come off on its own.

I've done the job with the booster in and with the booster out and just by replacing the internals. The latter method is preferred unless you have reason to believe that the bore of the MC is suspect. For the former two, I have yet to decide which way is less time consuming. If you have a helper handy doing it with the booster in is probably quicker.

Mark, good job getting the CMC in all by yourself. I'm going to bet you'll be sore in the morning

ROG100

Would it be usefull to supply clamps with the Blue Hose or is it over kill?

shmark

Knowing what I know now there's no way in hell I would attempt it without removing the booster. It's a cakewalk with the booster out, and now I know how to remove the booster. Of course now that it's done I don't think I'll have to do it again.

FWIW I cut the blue hose to get the reservoir out, but it just slipped right off the old master. Really glad I dug into it, since it was barfing fluid on the garage floor (flex line was not good either). I figured if I was going to the trouble of replacing the blue hose I might as well replace the master too since it's not a lot of money. And it would suck a LOT to put it back together only to have to replace it later. The brake master was replaced two years ago and I replaced all the brake lines just a couple months ago. Now I have new everything and it's going to be solid as a rock.

RyanPerrella

No

the hose holds just fine

i dont think you should supply anyone with blue hose. If they cant replace it, then they may just have to decide to do an auto trans swap. Thats an idea now?

shmark

IMO clamps are a good idea. Mine was practically welded to the reservoir, but it just slipped off the master. I know I had a leak there and another one in the flex line. I looked through the records (I have all of them) and everything except the brake master was original, so it was good insurance to just replace everything. Clamps will be just an additional bit of insurance, especially since I use a power bleeder and have every intention of tracking the car soon!