Hello everyone. Recently installed new Tick clutch master to help cure a 2 -3 upshift grinding issue. Have gravity bled and traditional pump the clutch pedal method for two days now. Still have the quick disconnect between the master cylinder and slave cylinder disconnected. When pumping the clutch pedal to bleed, we still seem to consistently get bubbles coming up into the Tick white plastic reservoir adapter and then on into the factory fluid reservoir. Tick says to reconnect back to the slave cylinder and bleed the slave which I understand is a real PITA without the remote bleeder installed. Very afraid that this will introduce air into the closed slave system which had no prior problems and create even more nightmares. The issue to me seems to be that the Tick master is some how creating the bubbles. There are no obvious fluid leaks and when constant pressure is applied to the clutch pedal there appears to be no bleed down. I have a very firm clutch pedal at this point with the quick disconnect line still disconnected. HELP - please any any ideas???????

MANY THANKS,
Bill

 

get under the car and grab the clutch line going to the master and use a screwdriver or something to press on the center of the quick disconnect to allow fluid to come out... keep it open for a bit and let it drain and have someone up top watch the fluid level to make sure it doesn't run low, this should get any air out of the master... do not press the clutch pedal while doing this process, it could cause a mess and potentially suck air back into the master when you release the pedal... the reason your pedal feels stiff without the clutch line connected is because the valve is closed at the quick disconnect and fluid has nowhere to flow, basically it acts like a brick wall to the fluid

 

And I'll add that you really should not be cycling the MC piston without being hooked up to the slave. Hopefully you didn't damage your MC. The only way for the piston to move in that situation is by internally bypassing fluid. Then when the piston retracts, it's either going to pull air through the quick disconnect or past the piston seals themselves or both. Basically a hydraulic system works by using one half to build pressure and the other half to react to that pressure. You only have half of that equation right now. The pressure has nowhere to go.

Do as Neutron said and gravity bleed your master. Have someone keep topping off the reservoir until you don't see any bubbles. And honestly a little air is not that big a deal. I've found these setups do actually self-bleed themselves over time.

 

Many thanks for the reply. Sorry, I replyed to this on Nov. 3, don't know what happened.

We have gravity bled the system this way MANY MANY times. We can still see air trapped in the white plastic reservoir adapter and when we try to bleed it with the clutch we see bubbles being created in the system. I understand what you're saying about having a firm pedal with it disconnected, I just mention this because we do not do seem to have any fluid leaks, or any pressure leak down with constant pressure on the pedal so don't think there's an issue with the seals. Many other posts say they can't get any pedal. Tick says to reconnect everything and then bleed through the clutch slave, but this doesn't make sense with the issues of the bubbles being created on the master cylinder side of the system. I am very fearful that this will just create more problems on the slave side which was fine before we started all of this. Incidentally, we have also tried the modified Ranger method where I have snaked a tube at the end of a full syringe down through the reservoir in an attempt to force more bubbles out of the reservoir adapter, but this does not seem to help either as more bubbles are created when we then pump and bleed with the clutch pedal.

 

Talked to Matt at Tick who was very helpful and said to open the quick disconnect and then pump the pedal, which seemed to work better. Still have a big bubble in the adapter (which he says he see's all the time and not to worry) and some bubbles coming up, but agree that this should eventually self bleed. Have re-connected and buttoned everything up and will test drive later this weekend. MANY thanks for the help and advice.

 

The only way you can properly bleed without being hooked up to the slave, is by holding open the quick connect while it's submersed in fluid. If you're not doing that, then everytime that piston in the MC retracts, it's going to pull air from somewhere.