Toiletbrush

I just swapped out the stock clutch line with a steel braided one made by Goodridge. It was pretty easy to install and everything went well until it came time to bleed the slave cylinder. For about 6-7 rounds of pumping and bleeding, the pedal would not return without pulling it back up. It would only come up about half way. We bled the master cylinder, and then the pedal would return on its own. We then bled the slave cylinder another 20-some times, and the clutch pedal still feels spongy compared to when the stock line was on.

The pedal position of when the clutch engages and disengages is way different too. Before, it would begin to disengage at about half-travel, but now you have to stomp it through the floor (about 90-95% travel distance) to get it to disengage, and it engages almost as soon as the pedal begins its return stroke. This is a mystery to everyone at the shop that was around to help on this. I was expecting a more firm feel from the pedal after the line swap and instead I get a semi-squishy sensation. Is there something I missed in the bleeding process? The clutch does disengage all the way, so it is not a huge problem, but it is annoying to get results opposite from what I expected (and what the mod claims to improve).

I am sure that there is some scientific fluid-dynamics answer to this, but any advice from someone with a good explanation as to why this happened or previous experience stories would help! Thanks.

hmhaga

You have to remove the slave cylinder from the gearbox and hold it above the master cylinder/reservoir while bleeding, otherwise you'll have trapped airpockets in the system.

Toiletbrush

I am sure that would have fixed it also! I didn't know that the slave cylinder can hold air that cannot be bled out by pumping the pedal alone. We had to push the piston back into the slave cylinder housing as far as it would go and then crack the bleed port open. There was a load of air hiding in the slave cylinder.

Kevin M

iTrader: (12)

I had a similar issue when I replaced the slave cylinder on my RS. Wouldn't clear out all the air, and the pedal wouldn't return. I scrwed around with it for about 2 hours, freaking out over a bad MC, searching all over the interweb, etc. Then I had some inspiration and "reverse" bled it. I ran my tubing line from the bleeder into the can of fluid, and cracked the fitting on the line to bleed. Worked like a charm.