clutch bleeding
 

last night my clutch fell to the floor. i called a friend of mine and he said to add more fluid on account that my master cylinder didn't blow up. so i added more and i get some responce out of it (shifting into gear) but its still real airy. how difficult would it be to bleed it? i'm prolly going to have my friend help me, but what can i expect to see while doing it?

its a closed system, if you have to fill it up at all you have a leak somewhere you need to fix before you bleed it.

On the slave cylinder is a small metal nipple next to the line. Take the cap off your slave cylinder and attach a vacuum hose to the small metal nipple. (hE sAid N1ppLe)
Put the vacuum hose into a bottle of brake fluid. Take a 10mm line wrench and open the line with your vaccum hose on it. With the line in the brake fluid, get inside the car and pump the clutch pedal. You'll have to do it with your hand while it is open. When the clutch resevoir gets NEAR empty add some more fluid and pump the pedal until you think you've got all the air out. Put the pedal back to the top and reclose the nipple. Waa laa, more clutch pedal.

follow this first. if you have a leak somewhere, you can add fluid all day long and not get any results. and who knows where all that fluid went the first time....

after its fixed, the reply from BinaryRotary is spot on.

its not leaking anywhere, no physical signs. i don't belive its ever been changed and its a 20 year old car. but when im in there i will keep an eye out for any leaks

if you dont see fluid exiting at the slave cylinder or anywhere else, but you are still losing pressure, it means you have a leak in the master cylinder and itll need to be rebuilt or replaced.

No external leak = internal leak. The fluid goes past the piston and no pressure is built up. Do yourself a favor and replace all three parts of the clutch hyraulic system - master, slave, and hose. Under $100 for whole thing.

I posted this back in April, maybe it will help you:

Just yesterday I finished a complete clutch hydraulics job on my '86 N/A. My clutch was bleeding from the slave, and was leaking out the rubber boot. If your clutch pedal is just sitting on the floor, and you have fluid in the reservoir, you need to draw fluid into the line. DO NOT try to bleed air from a system that is entirely air. Make sure you have a bottle or 2 of brake fluid handy and do this:

-Bleeding Screw CLOSED> Pull pedal from floor.
-OPEN Bleeding Screw> Touch/Push Pedal back to the floor, it will stay on it's own.
-CLOSE B.S.> Pull pedal from floor again.
-OPEN B.S.> Touch/push pedal back to floor again.

Repeat this process at least 3-4 times, (you can do this part by yourself, faster with 2 people.) To know that you have pushed enough air, and pulled in enough fluid for "actual bleeding" do this:

-CLOSE B.S.> Pull pedal from floor.
-STILL CLOSED> Push pedal.
-if it falls to floor, you need to do more fluid drawing
-if it falls to floor, maybe you have a serious leak
-if it DOES NOT fall to floor and offers your foot resistance, you can either start proper bleeding, or diagnosing where your leak is.

***Always keep an eye on your fluid reservior, keep ample fluid in during the whole process, if it goes empty, you need to start all over, (because you pulled air into the system, not fluid)***
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Common trouble spots for leakage are (you can search to find these):
-Check your carpet by the clutch pedal inside your car, this would be a master cylinder failure, fluid leaks past the pushing rod and back into your car, staining your carpet.

-Mine was a slave cylinder leak, just get a flashlight and look around the clutch release fork for fresh fluid.

-Check your flex line running to your slave for cracks or leakage.
-Check steel hard line running from your master for breaks or cracks.

Once you get down in there, you will realize the clutch hydraulics are fairly straightforward. I opted to just get New Slave cylinder, New Master, and a SS Braided Flex line. With shipping all came to around $80. If you just fix the leak by rebuilding, the next weakest link is gonna go sooner or later. Buy your Master and Slave from NOPI. Really good deal, and get your flex from Mazdatrix, the SS Braided was only $18, OEM Rubber line is like $16, shipping will put it to $25 i believe.

thanks, this project is sounding alot more feseable

its easy bro. also go with the braided line. be sure to ground your engine to the firewall so it dont catch. also the master and slave cylendar are pretty cheap to get new, and the braided line is the same price as the regilar line so youd have to be pretty dumb not to opt for the braided line.