Clutch woes!

[Loki]

I've searched around and I have an idea what is wrong, but I want to call upon the wisdom of 240 Gen I was going to class today and about halfway to the highway I noticed it was getting harder and harder to shift. Eventually depressing the clutch pedal wouldn't even engage the clutch to put it into gear. I pulled over and checked my fluid and it was about halfway between nothing and min, so I put some DOT3 into it. It worked well enough to drive back home but it still gives me trouble. I have to depress the clutch all the way down to engage, and about every other shift it won't go.

I have a feeling I need to bleed the line, but remembering the botched job that was my brakes on my last car, I'm very hesitant. Right now my plan is to let the weather warm up a bit and go work the clutch to try and get the fluid moving. So what do you think NICO? The car was looked over completely back in late October by Nissan techs before I bought it and I did not here of any potential clutch problems. I also see no fluid either on the ground or on the floorboard.

And just to throw it out there so a 5-speed newbie can learn, I got a question about proper clutch use. When I reverse I usually give it a little gas and a little clutch then switch between brakes and gas so I don't go screaming around the parking lot in reverse or stalling. Is it bad to do so? It feels right, but I don't know for certain.

[Hijacker]

You have air in the line. I would start by bleeding the master cylinder just to be on the safe side. If there's air in the master, bleeding the slave is a futile practice as you'll never get all the air out.

1) get a friend to help you.

2) have said friend sit in the car

3) break the fitting loose on the clutch MC. Don't unscrew it, you just need to break it. When it's broken have your friend push the clutch pedal in and hold it down. The pedal should stay on the floorboard by itself, but just tell him to leave it in.

4) tighten the fitting back and then have your friend pull the pedal back to rest.

5) repeat 3-4 as necessary. You'll know you're done when you get an uninterrupted stream of fluid.

If you have a clutch line damper. Go bleed at that. One pedal press at a time.

Then bleed at the slave cylinder.

Now, I'm willing to bet that your slave cylinder is starting to go bad, and that's why you're having this issue in the first place. Winter tends to make hydrolic equipment hate life and die, and the clutch slave is usually the first casualty in my experience. You may want to invest in getting a new one as they're pretty cheap and you have to bleed the line anyways when you replace it. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.

[fourLUG_hero]

And just to throw it out there so a 5-speed newbie can learn, I got a question about proper clutch use. When I reverse I usually give it a little gas and a little clutch then switch between brakes and gas so I don't go screaming around the parking lot in reverse or stalling. Is it bad to do so? It feels right, but I don't know for certain.

When I reverse, I use the technique that I like to call 2 kick gentle lift. When you're reversing, gently press the gas pedal twice while slowly letting go of the clutch pedal. It's hard to explain by typing but I've shown people how to do it visually. It makes reverse as smooth as a 15 year old girl's cute butt.

Also, when about to shift into reverse, wait till your car's at a complete stop to prevent any unnecessary grinds to the reverse gear.

[Loki]

The part I unscrew to bleed, that's right under the hood, right? I really don't have the means of jacking up the car if it comes to that.

Also, how cheap are you talking here? I'm really not qualified to do any major work on this car, so I would probably have to take it to a shop for something like that.

What would a clutch line damper look like btw?

[Hijacker]

A slave should run about 30-40 bucks.

The master can be bled with the car on the ground, but to be honest, you should have a jack to get the nose up to reach the slave safely.

The damper block will be a small block bolted to the inside of the frame rail. You'll see the clutch hard line screw into it, and then coming off the rear should be a long hard line that heads rearward then makes a 180 back to the front and connects to a softline to the clutch slave. It's common for those not to be included during a 5 speed swap.

[Loki]

Eh. I have jack stands at the old house I believe, but I need this car to get to school tomorrow. Is it going to be absolutely necessary to bleed the slave?

[94_240sx]

Eh. I have jack stands at the old house I believe, but I need this car to get to school tomorrow. Is it going to be absolutely necessary to bleed the slave?

Yes. If it's possible, get rid of that dampner when you replace slave. Most people get rid of it and there's no problem.

[Loki]

Alright. One other thing I have been wondering, where is the proper point to jack up the car (not using the car's own jack)? The points that you use the stock jack at seems too weak to use with the 2 1/4 ton jack I have at this house. Stupid question, but I'd rather look stupid asking something than having all sorts of dents under my car.

[srpowered240sx]

frame rails is where i always lift from. harbor freight has some cheap 100 aluminum 2.5 ton jacks that are great for the price. no excuse not to have a jack in the house. its already been answered, but yes, you need to bleed the slave.

[94_240sx]

If you look at the frame rail, there's 'T' joint in the middle. I usually jack up that spot and put jack stands. Or I lift up the differential if some work needs to be done in the back. I put a couple of layers of cardboard on the pad to minimize the damage. I think FSM shows jack points pretty well.

[Loki]

I have a jack, I just was afraid to use it over the trunk jack because I didn't know exactly where to put it.

Alright, I tend to make some little mistake with things like this that just exacerbate everything so here's what I plan on doing to make sure I'm not missing something:



Jack up the passenger side, connect a tube to arrow 1, pump the clutch pedal a few times, leave pressed, then crack loose, bleed a little, then tighten. Repeat until no air bubbles come out. Then repeat for arrow 2. And #2 is the slave cylinder, correct? I just looked under the car and noticed it had a fair amount of fluid coating it, so I guess the assumption it went bad was correct.

So, if I go buy a new slave cylinder, it's a pretty straight forward unbolt/rebolt and connect lines, then bleed the system, yes? Thanks for putting up with me guys

[94_240sx]

Trust me. You are better off removing dampener. 3 is a hardline from master cylinder, so connect directly to 4. You will need to bleed only slave cylinder. Yeah, everything's straight forward. A couple of tips. Spray some PB Blaster before you loose any hardlines and bleeders. Use hard line wrench. That way you won't strip any.



Looks like this.

[Hijacker]

I always pump 3 times and hold, crack the bleeder, let fluid pour out, retighten the bleeder, pull up the pedal. 3 pumps seems to be the magic number for bleeding hydrolics.

On masters, I usually crack, pump once and hold, tighten, let up on pedal. If you try to pump it up and then crack, you tend to just force the air into the line and it doesn't bleed out.

to remove the damper block, you'll have to gently bend the main hard line to the bracket you see the soft line going to. When you do so, try to bend it in a long arc instead of a quick bend. If you bend it sharply, it will kink and stop up the line. Just get it facing the bracket and then attach the soft line directly to the main hard line.

[Loki]

What exactly does removing the dampener accomplish? Less line the fluid has to pass through?

Also don't have any hard line wrenches. The car isn't that old, and it's from FL, I don't think the bleeder lines will be that hard to break.

[94_240sx]

What exactly does removing the dampener accomplish? Less line the fluid has to pass through?

IIRC, it's supposed to smooth out shift feel at higher speed or something(not sure though), but most people took it out since it's PITA to bleed clutch line. Even guys at the dealership told me to get rid of it. I'd replace rubber line with stainless steel line while I'm at it.

For the slave cylinder, someone did the write up recently, so it'll show up if you search.

[Loki]

So if I remove the dampener, there's only one place I need to bleed from right? I didn't see any bleeder screws on the master cylinder.

Edit: Eh, I guess that is so. That's what it sounds like from the other thread. Now though, I'm not sure I need a whole new slave, maybe just a new rubber gasket/housing thing.

[94_240sx]

I think new slaver cylinder is like $19.99 from Autozone. It's cheap, so you should just get it.

[Loki]

I guess. I'm just naturally a super cheapskate and seeing as how I plunked down over 3k right from my bank account into college I'm particularly cheap lately. I have half a mind to fashion a new slave out of bailing twine, bubble gum and piping.

Anywho, I will attempt this tomorrow after classes and hopefully not screw everything up.

[RCG_Savage]

but most people took it out since it's PITA to bleed clutch line. .

I spent two hours trying to bleed the lines, gave up and bought a line to replace it.

[Loki]

Well, on the plus side the previous owner said the damper wasn't installed during the 5 speed swap. So that's one less headache to deal with.

Now if this snow would go away so I could safely jack it up I'd be golden. *sigh*

[Hijacker]

So if I remove the dampener, there's only one place I need to bleed from right? I didn't see any bleeder screws on the master cylinder.

Edit: Eh, I guess that is so. That's what it sounds like from the other thread. Now though, I'm not sure I need a whole new slave, maybe just a new rubber gasket/housing thing.

When I said to break loose the fitting on the master, I'm talking about the line fitting for the clutch hard line.

Slave cylinders are so cheap that there's no call to try and rebuild one. 9/10 the thing will fail again in short order if you rebuild one.