Hydraulic clutch problems

[Russell]

Hey guys!

I've got a bit of an odd issue with my hydraulic clutch on my truck. I spent hours bleeding it before I broke my arm, but I can't seem to get any pedal.

What I've found is that if I forcefully pull the clutch fork back towards the rear of the truck, then the hydro clutch suddenly has a nice firm pedal, and operates the clutch perfectly, but if I just let it sit, then the thing has no pedal.

Its almost like that clutch fork is supposed to have a big heavy spring on it or something. I tried putting a drum brake spring on, but it won't stay on the fork once you put the pedal all the way down, nor can any of my drill bits make much more than a little dent in the metal that fork is made of to make a hole.

I tried using longer and shorter pushrods, but as you might imagine, the clutch fork just presses back and pushes the clutch slave's piston back into the cylinder just as much as before, just from a different starting point to a different finishing point.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

 

[sweetk30]

look for my 2 threads on this stuff in this search results. http://www.coloradok5.com/forums/search.php?searchid=601882

 

[Russell]

Yeah, I'd already read them and tried everything you did with no avail...

If I take the slave right off, and pump the slave piston right to the end of it's throw, I cannot move the master cylinder at all, so I am pretty confident it is bled all the way.

What I did for now is I took the spring out of an old master I had blown the seal on, and put it on around the pushrod coming out of the slave, with a washer on the slave side to keep it from wrecking the rubber boot. It is strong enough that it gets me enough clutch to get the truck into gear and move it around the yard now. However, the clutch's release point is basically half an inch off the floor, so its pretty tricky to drive...

My only thought is that my PO must have put in a mechanical linkage's throwout bearing in. I understand they are a bit shorter than the hydraulic version, and would explain all of my problems.

I cannot be bothered to pull it all apart again, right after I got the stupid thing running, so I am gonna live with what I've got for now. I'll eventually get used to it, or come up with some other solution.

 

[Russell]

Well, I have bled the crap out of this thing, and I am about 80% sure either the master or slave, or both, have failed on me. Every time I crack that bleeder, the thing shoots a ton of air out, so there is air coming in somewhere. There is no fluid leaking anywhere, I've made very sure.

I'm not looking forward to ponying up for new stuff, but I guess that the clutch is pretty important to driving, lol

 

[Mudstud]

I have very limited experience with clutches but when I worked on an 85 Fiero the only way I could get a good pedal was to have dude push the pedal down, I cracked the bleeder and then pulled/pushed the rod on the slave back to force it's complete throw, tighten the bleeder, release the rod and let off the pedal. Then do it all again, and again, and again, and again. This worked as it was forcing all the air in the slave to be forced out in several strokes as opposed to an hour of bleeding. Good luck.