Bad clutch slave cylinder?
 

Ok, so I did a bit of searching before I posted this, and I have a vague idea of what "may" be wrong with my car, but I'll give you guys the full scoop and hopefully I can get this resolved by the end of the weekend. Here's my story:

Swapped a TII engine/driveline/the works with a very experienced friend of mine into an NA chassis. Swap went off without a hitch, the car started fine on the first try. During the swap, we installed a RB 9.5 flywheel, to match the ACT S/S clutch I already had in the turbo car the engine came from. There is approximately 10-12k miles on that clutch. I will mention now that prior to the engine swap, everything worked fine on the TII engine/driveline/etc. No problems whatsoever. Today I finally finished hooking up the driveline from the TII and installing the rear subframe, had everything ready to go, but the car won't shift in to gear. Here is the following sequence of events...

1) Car won't shift gears with motor off

2) Bled the clutch(slave?) screw on top of the tranny with socket wrench, lots of air, clutch fluid "black as my soul"

3) Car would shift roughly(sorta) with motor off, but not with motor on

4) Installed speed bleeder, bled same screw, lots of air

5) Noticed improved pedal pressure, shifts with motor off, still would not shift with motor on BUT would cause the car to inch forward when attempting to shift into 1st

6) Bled 2x more times, no air at all the 2nd time, clutch fluid is now clean instead of the death black when the entire process was began.

So what's this spell guys? Are we bleeding it correctly? Are my master/slave cylinders dead? Mind you, they worked PERFECTLY before the swap. I'm at a loss. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance!

Steve

The clutch hydrolics are probably bad.The seals are probably leaking.Look in the parts section of this forum and pick up a new assembly.

Whoa, I was lying in bed and it hit me: When we did the swap, we installed the tII slave cylinder(because it's different than the NA one) but we left the NA master cylinder in(because it's the same as the TII). What we didn't think about though was that the TII slave cylinder has about 50,xxx miles on it, whereas the NA master cylinder has 150,xxx miles. I'm thinking that the TII slave cylinder, being 100,000 miles younger, would cause the aging master cylinder to fail and not build pressure. Does this sound like the answer to my problem? Lemme know!

Steve

I would say you're on the right track. The clutch system is a pretty simple one. I would rebuild the master with a kit. Easy to do. When you did the swapped from the TII did you keep the tranny and engine together or were they unmated? (checked throwout bearing?) Have you tried shifting gears, with engine started, without the drivehsaft connected? If your cylinder is rebuilt and you have not cleared up the problem more than likely it's a drivetrain issue.

Yeah I would agree with that. I always replace all the clutch hydraulics if I have to replace one part.

I would probably rebuild the T2 slave and replace the line at the same time that you replace or rebuild the master, just to be sure.

Re: Bad clutch slave cylinder?
 

There is the clue -

The master cylinder bore is worn & scuffing the rubber off.

A rebuild master & you're good to go..

If you pump the clutch pedal much as you would pump brakes that need bleeding.......does it shift better?

Can your fellow worker see the slave moving? Does it seem to move to full travel but seem to creep back to the original position even though the driver still has the pedal full down? If it fully extends and does not creep back towards the original position, then I'd suspect a clutch install problem,

Did you use the turbo push rod or the n/a pushrod on the slave cylinder? Is it possible that they got swapped? Take both out and put them side by side. If one is longe than the other....try it instead of the one in the car now.

Great! Thanks guys. One more thing: I'm a little mixxed here, It sounds like the master cylinder is most definitely the culprit here, having 100,000 more miles than the slave, but why should I rebuild the master AND the slave? I have a perfectly good master cylinder sitting in my TII donor car, the one that was originally mated to the slave cylinder sitting in the project car. Can't I just unbolt the donor car master cylinder and plug it into the project car's hydraulic system? It has the exact same amount of miles on it as the slave cylinder because they were originally mates. Or is there a chance that my slave cylinder is already F'd up because I mated it with the aged master cylinder? Thanks guys! You've been very helpful. =)

Steve

Hailers,
We did indeed see the slave moving, it "appears" to have full travel, but I've never really paid attention to it's travel before, so I'm not totall sure. I didn't look at the time to see if it was slowly creeping back or not. It does shift easier if I pump the clutch pedal about 10-13 times(I can't get into 2nd, but after doing this, I can, with the engine off). We used the turbo everything, I don't think the pushrod was an exception, I talked to j9fd3s(whom I did the install with) and he said it's the turbo one. I'll try to get my worker back over here today and check out the slave movement. Thanks!

Steve

Re: Re: Bad clutch slave cylinder?
 

Like I said, the black fluid is from the worn out master cylinder.

You probably have not used it enough to hurt the slave.
Just replace the master, bleed the system, and the will fix it.

Thanks Bill, I believed you, haha, I just was confused by what Mark said when he was talking about rebuilding the TII slave. I'm doing this in about 20 minutes, I'll let you guys know how it went! Thanks!

Steve

Update: Replaced the master cylinder. Bled the system with the speed bleeders, but now it won't bleed. We opened them up and pumped the petal, but nothing squirts out, it just sort of oozes. No air either. Just oozing. I tried priming it by closing everything and then pumping the accordian lookin thing on the slave cylinder, but that didn't seem to help either(althought I'll admit I'm not sure I was doing it right). I'm at a loss. Is it possible my speed bleeder is bad? Why won't anything come out? If I'm out of options I guess I'll be ordering a new set of clutch hydraulics monday, but I'd like to exhaust all the possibilities. Thanks guys!

Steve

P.S. And if my clutch hydraulics DID fail, why would they do it overnight? They worked in the donor car when we drove it out to it's current location?? >=P

With the bad original master, it may have gunked up your slave (since it sounds like the slave was in decent shape after all).

well, I pulled my last trump card, I replaced the speed bleeder with the original banjo bolt, it bleeds fine now, no air, just pure, clear, brake fluid. But the shit still won't go into gear when the engine's on. I guess I'm out of options unless somebody else can come up with anything? Otherwise I'll let you guys know how the new clutch hydraulics worked. They better, I have no desire to pull the tranny out. :mad:

Steve

Is it possible for the hydraulics to fail, but still have normal slave-pushrod action? I had a friend hold down the clutch pedal while I watched the slave pushrod and it held normally(i.e. it didn't sink down). Isn't that what healthy hydraulics are supposed to do? What's that leave left? Clutch fork? Throw out bearing? This sucks! >=P Thanks fellas.

Steve

Did you do a clutch job at the same time?

So - your master was bad and is now fixed.
Hydraulics are good.

Now you are down to something in the clutch or pilot bearing draging.

We did a flywheel job. Im beginning to think along the lines of the pilot bearing as well. Can the pilot/throw out bearing being awry, but not be making any noise to show for it? Everytime I hear about either of those, there's noise. What all should I replace while I'm screwing around down there? As always, many thanks. =)

Steve

Have you try adjusting the clutch pedal?? Maybe the distance of the push rod has changed.

Yes, we did that. It's maxed out now. My new best friend Ed(r_ed_line53) has informed me that we "may" have installed the clutch disc backwards. Actually, "probably" have installed the clutch disc backwards. Wow, if this is true, I am a dolt. I'll let you guys know how things went after I replace my bearings and flip the clutch disc.... :bash:

Steve

Steve is an idiot... LoL... j/k

Do you need my savagery help again?

Kevin

I'm going to need someone's help! I'm going to see if I can trick Jsotelo into working on my car(once again). :D If that doesn't work, I'll be calling in the calvary! :p:

Steve

Chris Ng and I had very similar problems with his car. We replaced or rebuilt all the hydrolics and still could not get it in gear. The final solution was a cracked clutch fork. Read this thread
http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/showth...threadid=14019