I have a feeling my 99 has a bad slave cylinder. Car won't cat gear at all. Clutch feels relatively soft and sometimes will not spring back to original position. If I try to get into gear car simply grinds. Any ideas on what it is and what to change while i am at it? If the problem is one thing should I follow it up by changing something else? And also another quick question. I have recently changed out my coolant and thermostat (car overheats and sometimes reaches 240). Thermostat is suppose to open st 187. I figured it went bad since when I took it out it seem stuck and would move at all. I did some test drives on it and it still wants to overheat. Any ideas? Car holds pressure, does not leak fluid, and the radiator has no blockage. Water pump maybe? One thing I forgot to do is purge the system. I will look into that tommorow since it is late at night. Thank you all in advance and I will keep you update on how things are going.

UPDATE: I have just checked fluid on the clutch.. It is completely empty. I will fill it up in the morning. Any steps to do it correctly? Tools? Any bleeding? Two man job?

 

If the system is completely empty, its a ROYAL PAIN IN THE *** to properly bleed it. You usually have to jack up the car, drop the exhaust, remove the tunnel plate and get to the bleed tube/fitting on the passengers side of the slave cylinder.

If the slave cylinder is bad, the entire drive train (Torque tube, trans, differential) needs to be removed. Its always recommended to replace the clutch, pressure plate, slave, pilot bearing and throw out bearing when ever you are that far into the drive train. You should also add a slave cylinder remote bleeder kit!


How Many miles are on the drive train?????? If you have over 50K miles, you should also check the rubber couplers and bearing inside the Torque Tube.

SO,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, this repair just doesn't quit at a bad slave cylinder..

While its apart, you should also replace the differential out put shaft seals. Change the differential lube and transmission ATF.

 

I have a SPEC Twin Disk and it does well with my measly 450 RWHP

I heard the LS7 clutch is also good.

Any twin disk will work fine.

BC

 

For the coolant, yes you have to purge or burp the system. Dont overlook the possibility that the thermostat although new, could be defective. Boil water and put it in and see if it opens.

For the hydraulic system it is a sealed system so if it is leaking then its time for parts replacement. The hydraulic clutch system is for me in my opinion, (as I have done all my own work) one of the more frustrating parts about these cars. Lack of access and lack of foresight leave GM guilty as charged with this. You might get lucky and only need to replace the master. You can start with that. but you still have to bleed it and accessing the factory bleeder is very difficult.

best wishes

 

spec is good as Bill said. I personally did not have good luck with the LS7 assembly. I ran it for about four months and replaced it. I hated it. Several others have had similar results. Search the forum and do your research to draw your conclusions. I will tell you this, especially in clutches you get what you pay for.

 

Bill is right.

Without question if its out you want a remote bleed kit.

Best to take a loot at the torque tube at least, the front bearing in mine was bad when i did it all.

The master is done through the wheel well and not that bad. So you could always do it later. Or try it first. The clutch box sucks but I don't know if you have to pull it to do a stock master. I did a tilton and its noticeably heavier, to the degree I'm fairly certain my left *** cheek is more toned then my right. But I got used to it in a month or so.

You will want to understand the function of a shim for the slave. I don't feel its a real thing mechanically, but they are very cheap so I used one as I have a twin disc and needed more clutch throw then stock. It is something you will want to decide about.

Get a clutch that doesn't adjust on its own, most of the aftermarket ones work this way but the c5/c6/c7 setups all have auto adjusting pressure plates that just seem to cause trouble. This is much more regularly discussed at ls1tech.
Buy a simple tool to seperate the master/slave its just a piece of flat metal with a u cut in it the right size but it helps me do it a bunch easier.

To pull the whole rear end out is honestly pretty easy. You need a full size jack to get the car high enough. You need the big jack stands(at least for the back) to get the car high enough without setting normal 3-4ton stands on boards or some nonsense. Get a trans jack from HF for under $100. I pulled the subfram,tras/diff,tunnel plate, xpipe, torque tube this year alone in 3.5-4 hours with those tools and a good electric impact.

I have a mantic twin from Doug at ecs. I only bought it cause I got a great deal, and was pretty sold on a monster single setup. Like anything that so wildly reduces Moment of Intertia it's pretty noticeable on a stock motor. As I track my car I am prettyy weight sensitive and mantic addresses that whole point in a really smart way. It took a few weeks to get used to driving and makes it harder to just toss my keys to someone as everyone kills the car when they get in it now. But once you learn it, its exceptionally good for something you won't really have to worry about ever slipping unless you go twin turbo. I don't think many super charger setups or single turbos make 1000wtq, and that is about what it holds. Yet its still totally slipable for comfortable street driving with a stock motor once its broke in and you learn it.

 

Spot on. Good stuff ^^^^^^^

 

As always, you MUST pay detailed attention to your drivetrains HOT BALANCE AND PROPER AIR GAP between the throwout bearing and the pressure plate fingers.

Measuring the air gap is pretty easy but, it you DONT do it, you will usually be doing the job over several times! Take the CRITICAL MEASUREMENTS and if necessary install the correct shim between the salve and TT if it called for.

If you don't have an engine balance issue now, do ALL YOU CAN to prevent a HOT BALANCE ISSUE. Mark the relation ship between the old flywheel and crank and pressure plate and if necessary, MATCH BALANCE the new flywheel pressure plate to the old one.

REPLACE THE PILOT BEARING! I know its a PITA but it a critical step that MUST be replaced. Replace it with another standard GM OEM bearing!