Newbie "Clutch bleeding" questions

[FrenchMike]

Seems Tazu is fitting a much better seal in their metal slave BUT unfortunately

the machining could be better and it's expensive

[FrenchMike]

Originally Posted by Supervinnie40

Decided to do a bit more of a proper write up of what I've done. I didn't take any pictures, but Google has plenty of those

This write up is for bleeding the clutch after you've just installed a new tazu master cylinder, but before you put everything back together.

- notice: things will be a lot easier if you remove the air-filter housing and the battery including the battery box. In my case the air-filter housing just pulls off, the battery box is connected with 4 torkx screw size 30.

1. You start with unscrewing the cap of the master cylinder and taking out the condom.

2. Put something underneath the master cylinder to catch any spillage. I used a piece of cardboard, with some towels and paper cloths. You want to avoid this stuff getting in your carpets.

3. Grab the connector at the end of the pipe in the engine bay. It is the light gold piece at the end of the pipe the man is holding in this picture:


4. Use something made from sturdy plastic (not not to hard!) to gently push back the black stop on the inside of the connector.
You can slightly see the black inside at the head of the golden connector in this image. With the Tazu master cylinder it won't be gold but silver.


With a bit of trial and error you can push the black bit back and hold it there. Just a small slit would be enough.

5. With a syringe (or something similar) you can suck up some DOT4 fluid from the bottle and drip it onto the connector that is pointing straight upwards. It might sound very slow to drip-fill it, but you'll notice that it goes pretty fast.
In my case I did 4 full syringes to fill the container up completely.

6. Make sure a second pair of eyes is checking the level in the container in the footwell. Or go back yourself to check it after every syringe. You want it to be full, but not spill.

7. Once it is almost full, put the condom in and check how high the level goes. In my case the level was about 5 mm under the edge and when I put the condom in, the level was spot on at the rim.

8. Screw the cap back on the master cylinder.

9. Drip fill the tube some more, the master cylinder might be full, but the pipe isn't yet.

10. Once its full, make the black middle pop back up so the pipe is now closed. Bending it down shouldn't spill any fluid.

11. Connect the new hose with the connector on the slave cylinder.

12. Pump the clutch pedal a few times, and use a piece of wood to hold it down.

13. Unscrew the bleed nipple using 2 spanners! A little bit of fluid will come out.
In my case I did this 2 times, just to be sure. But there was no air or bubbles coming out.

I found the bleed nipple underneath the air-intake pipe to the right of the engine block. Just on top of the gearbox-housing.

14. Start the car in neutral, and try out your clutch by putting it in gear and maybe move forwards and backwards a little bit. If you are sure that everything feels good, go for a test drive.

For me, everything was spot on. I think the bleeding wasn't even really needed, I just did it to be sure.

Hi,congrats

Little question ;once bleeded ,if you depress your pedal simply with a finger

How many centimeter of play do you get ?

On mine,
I still struggle looking for an air ingress .(B&B slave ,Tazu master,quick
fit connector replaced with a compression joint )

After bleeding,the pedal becomes softer;slightly the play increases from 1 cm , to 3 cm in around 3000 km ...

No fluid lost

Mike

[Supervinnie40]

The old master cylinder had almost a cm of play in it. The new one has about half of that. As soon as you touch it, you can feel the resistance.

The funny thing is, with my old master cylinder I sometimes felt a little bit of resistance when selecting first gear. Not always, but sometimes.
Everybody told me that a new master cylinder would fix this. It doesn't. I still have the same experience. I also found that there is absolutely no difference in how far I have to lift the pedal before the wheels start to turn.

The only real difference is how smooth the pedal moves and a very slight squeeky noise the old one used to make. Other then that, I notice no difference whatsoever.

[roverbarmy]

Originally Posted by Supervinnie40

The only real difference is how smooth the pedal moves and a very slight squeeky noise the old one used to make. Other then that, I notice no difference whatsoever.

I bled the clutch and lubricated the pedal linkage just over two years ago and it has been fine since! I was going to get a complete new clutch but just the lubrication and bleeding seem to have cured my heavy/squeaky clutch.
Mike

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by Supervinnie40

The old master cylinder had almost a cm of play in it. The new one has about half of that. As soon as you touch it, you can feel the resistance.

The funny thing is, with my old master cylinder I sometimes felt a little bit of resistance when selecting first gear. Not always, but sometimes.
Everybody told me that a new master cylinder would fix this. It doesn't. I still have the same experience. I also found that there is absolutely no difference in how far I have to lift the pedal before the wheels start to turn.

The only real difference is how smooth the pedal moves and a very slight squeeky noise the old one used to make. Other then that, I notice no difference whatsoever.

There is potential for the pivot eye on the MC push rod to wear, any wear there or on the pedal box pivot, is amplified by the pedal.

My OEM and original MC's pushrod pivot was quite worn, causing a lot of wasted motion.

[Supervinnie40]

Probably a translation problem, but I'm not really sure what you are trying to tell me HarryM1BYT....

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by Supervinnie40

Probably a translation problem, but I'm not really sure what you are trying to tell me HarryM1BYT....

In the MC, there is a push rod, which operates the piston. The push rod attaches to the pedal via (in the OEM MC) a plastic eye. The plastic eye after a great deal of use, can wear to the point of becoming slightly oval, rather than round as when new. Worn it will allow extra play or wasted motion at the pedal. 0.5mm of play at the eye, might be equal to 10mm of play as you press the pedal.

This...

eye-rod-piston
O---------||

[Supervinnie40]

I understand now lol.
You could be right about the wear of the eye. It won't be 10mm because I compared my old one with the Tazu one. And there is hardly any visible difference, but it might still be a few mm of play.