clutch bleed

hi, i have changed the clutch flexy pipe, tryed to bleed it with a presure sucking device, clutch still to the floor, can someone give me any advice please, tryed the how to page but i dont have a gunson bleeder, need help with this one thank you. oh and thank you all for your advice on my shocks it will be going back to the garage for them to put it right. :broon:

Hi Graham .
I was in the same position with mine earlier in the year . It's all down to air being stuck in the master cyl and it's position in relation to the slave cyl. I was going to suggest you get someone to help you but I know that someone will more than likely be your better half . The pedal will stay down if its like mine and I found that lifting and pumping it quickly and then tapping the cylinder bore of the master with something like a small toffee hammer , then returning to pumping the pedal eventually got the fluid moving . I used this method to good effect while working on DAF trucks that had the same problem .
I'm sure there may be other forum members on here that will give you their opinions .

John

thanks john, i wish i had left it alone now, but i will take your advice and get my son to work the peddle, heres hoping i have some luck,by the last weeks rateing the only luck i have had is bad luck

thanks john, tryed it today, it is not having any of it, any more ideas please.

You could try raising the rear end of the car to encourage air bubbles to pass. You need to pull and push the clutch lever, whilst someone opens and closes the bleed valve.

You could try raising the front, opening the bleed valve, with a tube into a reservoir on the ground under the slave cylinder and hope gravity feeds fluid through.

You could try using a syringe and tubing to inject fluid from the bleed valve on the slave, and fill that way to push the air out at the master cylinder end. In that case raising the front will help.

thank David. i am 61 and have blown myself out doing this, going to bring a mobile machanic in to fix it for me thanks again.

Hi Graham . I forgot to add that when you are bleeding the system , crack the union at the end of the master cyl to bleed that first . Tighten the union and then pump the pedal again and keep tapping the body of the cylinder and it should start to get the fluid moving . That's all I did . Sorry for late reply , I've been out .

John

Ps I'm 65 ! ! not that that helps at all ! :nonod:

thanks i went to the car at 8 30 this morning and i must have read your mind. i cracked the top pipe srew and the air came out but after 20 attemps i gave up, having a mobile machanic out tomorrow between 12 and 1 gonna cost me £88. but i will have to lace my card, again, i was sick of trying and trying again, so i have given up. buying a nissan juke next month so the mg can stay in the garage or may pop it on e bay . if i had hair i would have pulled it all out by now. must admit i haven't cussed a car before but i can say throughout bringing this back to life has been my living nightmare. :hgf:

from this to this

When I changed my clutch line I had problems getting pressure initially but suddenly got something. I am yet to test as the car is still on stands.

On difficult to bleed systems, I've disconnected the pipe from the master cyl, held my finger over the outlet and got a glamorous assistant to SLOWLY pump the pedal in time with my command ("push pedal iiiiiin......release pedal ooouuut......iiiiiiin.....ooouuut) and using my finger as a valve by holding it over the outlet on the release pedal out stroke until fluid starts to come out on the push pedal in stroke, this fills the master cyl.
Once the master cyl is filled, reconnect the pipe and bleed as per normal.

Take care not to get brake fluid on the paintwork, I cover anything that's likely to get fluid on it with plastic sheeting and keep the garden hose fitted with a trigger nozzle, turned on at the tap at the ready to wash any spilt fluid away.

The problem is with the master cyl being so far away from the slave cyl, that all the air in the pipe is both compressible and expandable, the fluid isn't being drawn into the master from the reservoir as air is being drawn back into the master from the outlet pipe and slave.

It's the old path of least resistance routine, air being less viscous than brake fluid.

There are other ways of achieving the same result, one is, fill the reservoir with fluid, remove the outlet pipe from the master cyl and let gravity and time start to get some fluid into the master cyl.

Or use pressure on the fluid in the reservoir to push it through, this usually requires special equipment but I've done it by using a spare reservoir cap modified with a suitable fitting to allow connection of the hose from the air compressor, thusly using compressed air to push the fluid through.