W.C. Legere
Member
- Joined
- February 9, 2018
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 8
- City, State
- Murphysboro, Il
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1996 Ford Explorer Sport
I just learned something about the hydraulic clutch system on my 96 Sport 5 speed manual and thought I would share it with everyone else. I'm sure there are those of you out there that already know this but if you run into the same situation I did this will help. A little over 3 years ago I bought this cheap because the trans was hung in reverse. It was a cheap fix but while I had the tranny out I decided to go ahead and replace the clutch, pressure plate and release bearing and have the flywheel machined due to the mileage (over 200K). It ran fine up until last week when the release bearing seized up. Went to step on the clutch pedal and it bent! So... after tearing the thrans out again I put the new release bearing in along with a new clutch master and reservoir. The mistake I made was not bench bleeding the whole system together BEFORE I installed it in the vehicle. With the quick connect between the master and the slave cylinder it allows the system to remain charged with fluid and prevents much air from getting into the system during assembly as long as fluid remains in the reservoir. So...after getting it all put back together I had no clutch pedal at all. Due to the air in the system it simply would not work. We tried bleeding the system for 2 hours with no results. The solution came to me as I was pulling the clutch master out for the 3rd time. Because the master is pointing in an upward position relative to the clutch pedal push rod air was getting trapped in the master and no amount of bleeding could get it out. By pulling the master back out and holding it upside down below the reservoir we were able at that point to gravity bleed all the air out and then the system worked fine. So... moral of the story is - If any of you encounter this same issue look to the clutch master cylinder for the problem.
