Bleeding the slave cylinder in 3~5 minutes

[mp40]

After reading what seems like tons of horror stories about bleeding the clutch slave/master cylinder, i decided to come up with a different way to bleed my slave/master cylinder assy in my 96 Explorer. I do believe that Ford originally vacuum bled their master/slave cylinders using a special vacuum machine that drew out all of the air in the system and replaced it with brake fluid. Seeing is that i have no access to the original machine, i decided to use something similar to bleed the air out of my slave/master cylinder assy. While visiting the local harbor freight i noticed this unit. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92474

I thought that might just work! Since the bleeder screw is somewhat recessed in the bellhousing, i also picked up some of these wrenches at the same time http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=32041

Crawling under the explorer, i first placed the 10mm off set wrench on the bleeder screw. Then, i lowered the hose of the bleeder kit down to the area of the bleed screw. I then placed an adapter that is included in the kit over the end of the bleeder screw. After opening up the bleeder screw, i crawled out from under the explorer, opened up and checked the clutches reservoir level. Keeping some new (just opened) brake fluid handy, i started to build up vacuum. After a few seconds, the master cylinders reservoir started draining and the container on the pump started to receive fluid. After a minute of this, i returned under the explorer and shut the bleeder screw with the vacuum still applied.

I checked the petal and it was free of sponginess!

I do believe that this will fix the worst to bleed master/slave cylinder assy's in the explorer/rangers etc. with out bench bleeding the slave or removing the master cylinder assemblies.

 

[Jack Flash]

good idea, mp40.

some of these slave cylinders are a chore to bleed correctly. the worst one that I've seen someone try to bleed was on an F 450 truck.

I wonder how durable the HF vacuum pump will be. brake fluid will destroy almost anything that it gets on. was there any special instructions to clean the bleeder after using it ?

....jjf (hate brake fluid, can't stand how it feels when it gets on my hands...lol)

 

[Totalled]

Looks like it will last longer then the Mighty Vac I got that only lasted a year before it would no longer pull any vacuum.

 

[mp40]

Guys, the brake fluid isn't drawn into the pump while bleeding the system. It all goes into the white plastic reservoir provided in the kit. The kit works really slick, and it isn't too expensive either. The all brass construction is really nice and i like this pump better than the "Mighty Vac" plastic unit..I too, hate the feel of brake fluid!

 

[Jack Flash]

I'm only about an hour away from a Harbor Freight store and am holding a rain check on an item. I am putting one of those bleeders on my list when I go pick up my 'rain check' item.

good catch, mp40.

.....jjf
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[toetagandrew]

Didn't work for mine.

Look at
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174643&highlight=clutch+bleeding