last year, i picked up a complete T5 setup for my car that came with what appears to be the stock master and slave cylinders that were put on the donor car in 1984.. they were nice and full of fluid when i got them, and worked perfectly on the bench..

over the course of the last 11 months, it all sat in my shed and the fluid found it's way out and it is all now completely full of air.. installed in the car, and the fluid won't make it's way from the reservoir to the master and down to the slave... i have 3 questions:

1) which engineer decided that they would put the bleeder at the lowest point with no way to hook up a line for a vaccuum or pressure bleeder?

2) did he get fired?

3) how do i replace the air in the system with fluid so that i can actually drive the damn thing?

 

i guess i'm the only idiot that can't figure this out and no one wants to share their super secret method for pushing air down and out of a poorly thought out bleeding mechanism...

 

If I'm understanding you correctly you just need bleed to clutch system, its a two man job this posts shows how to do it:
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...ed-clutch.html

 

yeah, been there done that... but it's so full of air that it won't even let fluid in.. my 97 and 98 Cavaliers had a similar setup, but they put a hose on the bleeder and had a standard brake bleeder valve up by fluid reservoir for bleeding.. i bled that with a hand vacuum pump.. they probably looked at the Camaro setup and figured out how to make it better.. i can't help but wonder if i could head to a junkyard and grab that hose off one of those and make my life easier??

 

Hard to get the fluid flowing when the components are completely dry. I always pour fluid in the master and slave before mounting them on the car. Add fluid to each a little at a time until they won't take anymore and then mount in the car. Fill your reservoir and then bleed. Works for me. If I don't have a helper, I leave the bleeder open for a day or so and the pedal is firm enough to bleed by myself. A few pumps, go under car and crack bleeder about 3 or 4 times and it's good.

 

The rubber hose could be shot between the master and slave.

As for bleeding, I was not aware the slave had a bleeder screw on a factory slave, only the aluminum replacements have bleeders

In any case, the way to properly bleed these things is to unbolt the slave from the bellhousing, let it hang with the pushrod facing down at a 45 degree angle with the hose on top. Then push the pushrod/piston in manually until the airs gone.
Do not push the master cylinder or clutch pedal when the slave is disconnected because it will pop the seal and its trash.

Next question. You said you tried this on the bench, what did you do exactly and are you sure you didn't ruin it? I'm a little confused why all the fluid ran out with it just sitting on the shelf in the shed, unless you left the cap off? This shouldn't happen on a good setup.

 

the hose came off the reservoir and the fluid made a nice puddle on the floor of my shed..

the line between the master and slave is a plastic line that is bent to follow the contours of the firewall.

the bleeder is an allen screw right next to the plastic line on top of the slave cylinder, with a little hole that shoots out the side right towards the header when you crack the screw. i got fluid to shoot out of that hole when i opened the bleeder and compressed the clutch arm with a large vise grip.

i figured it would be like every brake system i've ever had where the fluid would push itself thru the system via gravity if i took the bleeder screw out.. nope.. no dice.. i might have to take it all out and figure something out..

 

to button this up: i pulled it all out of the car and bled it on the bench. i kept the slave cylinder higher than the master so the air would have to travel upwards to get out and had to do a combination of pumping the master, cracking the bleeder, tightening the bleeder, and pushing in the the slave cylinder and holding it while cracking the bleeder about 50 times to get all the air out and fill it with new fluid... but when i stuck it back in the car i had a nice tight clutch pedal that works like it's brand new.

now i'm down to about a thousand minor details (header and exhaust system modification, parking brake cables, shifter boot, some rewiring for silly things like the clutch safety switch and reverse lights) to get this simple trans swap done and the car back on the road again.. i didn't worry about this stuff when i did my first auto to manual swap in my 76 Monte Carlo back in 1993, but now that i'm older i like to make stuff work right..

 

This is how i do it,it show in this video i done on an ls motor Watch "Ls style or lt1 style clutch bleeding procedure the easy way this vehicle is a pontiac gto" on YouTube

 

I just pumped the pedal a lot.... a LOT... the bleeder screw didnt appear to do anything. Perhaps there's a better way to do it... but it took quite a while. I think a week or two before it really was back to normal. If you get fluid in the system, it will self bleed all teh air out of it eventually.

 

I found the simplest answer to this question by mistake, swapping a plastic slave for an aluminum one. If your system has nothing but air in it, have someone laying under the car with the bleeder screw open, then have someone start pouring fluid into the master reservoir. Once fluid starts coming out, close the bleeder screw. I'm guessing the fluid cant get in because the air doesn't want to come out.

 

That's not clutch bleeding.

What you're posting just pulls air bubbles from the non-tightly sealed line between reservoir and master cylinder.

Circulation of the fluid through the system under pressure will sweep material and air out.

The third gen isn't bad to bleed, but no one wants to get a helper and do it with the pedal any more.

 

Get a pressure bleeder

Mitivac and motive

 

You don't need two people, special tools, or a vacuum pump. This is how its done:
I have done this myself. It took all of five minutes and I haven't had a problem since (2 years and counting.) Don't skip ahead in the video, just watch it and follow everything the man says to the letter and you'll be fine. It can be done in the car, just make sure to let the slave cylinder hang down while you do it and to keep tapping the line to free up any stubborn bubbles.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I just watched that video and did the procedure effortlessly. Awesome!!!!!!