So..... Drove my Z06 moderately hard the other day, and the clutch felt like it had air in it. I just got the car last month, and have been loving the thing so far! It has about 62k on it, and the brake and clutch fluid is pretty dark. Both will get bled very soon.

Anyways, since I have a small garage, and I hate crawling around under the car, I figured I'd take the intake off and try to get to the clutch bleeder. Sure enough, if you pull the intake, disconnect the wiring harness from the cam and oil pressure sensor so you can wiggle it, and use a long 7/16” wrench, you can reach the bleeder bolt easy enough. I also removed the air injection system tube next to the brake booster so I could wiggle my hand past the cylinder head with a wrench. Worked like a charm! Took me around 1.5 hours to figure all this out, I can probably do it faster now.


I haven't tried to bleed it yet, as my help went to bed. There's two wire harness clamps back there behind the heads they don't need to be messed with.... You just need to push the harness down slightly to see what you're doing farther down the bell housing as you look down from between the heads. My original plan was to install a vacuum bleeder on the bleeder sticking out of the bell housing, but I have no idea how I'd do that. So, I guess I'll wedge some rags in there to catch brake fluid. I'm not real sure where the fluid comes out of yet either. I'll post an update tomorrow with a couple vids.

So, since I had no one to help, I cleaned up my engine and the intake really well, installed new knock sensors (GM) and harness, installed new FelPro intake gaskets, cleaned the ground on the back of the driver's side head, and closed up for the night. I'll post up tomorrow with results. In the meantime, enjoy a pic of the car I'm messing with.

 

Sounds like a real pain, makes dropping the exhaust seem not so bad. A good mod when doing the clutch is a remote bleeder. The guy who sold me my car had just replaced the slave cyl and had the clutch out but didn't know about putting in a remote.

 

I've got a 40" remote speed bleeder run from the slave cylinder up to my clutch fluid reservoir that I installed during my LT1-S swap. I can completely flush/bleed my clutch system in about 8 minutes, which includes the time to find the correct size wrench in my toolbox...

I highly recommend doing this mod if you ever end up behind the bell housing for a clutch swap. Considering the fact that you're getting a light clutch pedal after a hard run, I'd bet it won't be terribly long...fresh clutch fluid typically ends up as just a band-aid. Not to be a pessimist...but might be worth starting to budget for a clutch/flywheel kit.

Sweet car by the way!

 

Bummer dude, I was hoping to stay outta the bell for a while. Thanks for the compliments too!

 

I actually have a remote bleeder in mind if I end up in the clutch. Pulling the intake will take way less time now that I know how, and I didn't want to break exhaust studs like a lot of people have. It wasn't too bad to pull the air tubing either. Way better than messing around under the car, imho.

Besides... Pulling a Vette intake is waaaaaay easier than an f body. Screw those cars lol.

 

Whelp, it worked. I caught most of the brake fluid that came out in rags. Definitely not the cleanest way to bleed the clutch, but I got it done in about 2 hours total time. I'm not real sure which way is easier, under the car, or removing the intake. I did get a ton of black gunk outta the reservoir, and the fluid was black when I started as well. Overall, I think it was a success, as my car now has new knock sensors and harness, new intake gaskets and a nice clean valley.