mp40
Member
- Joined
- December 9, 2005
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Washington State
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 96 sport 4.0 ohv
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.
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.