Wow clutch!
The car over the last 10 years rarely gets run. This spring I went to move it and it was super hard getting it into any gear. Once driven and warm it was ok.
Read about the clutches and figured it needed a good flush and bleed.
After reading all the horror stories let me tell you it isn't that bad.
I do have a car lift so I'm sure that makes it more tolerable... But let me tell you what to watch out for. This would have taken under an hour but took longer because of this.
I sprayed the exhaust bolts the night before with pb blaster and let them soak overnight. The car is garage kept and rarely run in even rain. These came off easily. So did the tunnel cover.
The bleeder is a bugger to get at. And it's not your typical bleeder like on brakes. This threw me for a few minutes trying to see up in there. It has a rather long hex body that actually makes it harder. . It's harder to get the wrench on and move the wrench back to getting it tight due to the one tunnel tube bolt.
when I first cracked it open very little fluid came out. We repeated pumping, holding and breaking bleeder open and closing. Virtually no fluid came out. We screwed with it for a long time and nothing.. Even just left it open trying to gravity bleed it.
I started to think master cylinder was bad.
So finally I got my vacuum pump for brakes out. And with bleeder closed trying to suck out the line with a pointed nipple that was in the kit from the reservoir side. I did this thinking something was blocking the flow.
I then had my dad pumping it. The pedal prior to that was completely limp. Worse than when we started. At this point I told him to make sure the pedal was pulled all the way back. When he did that I no finally saw the fluid level drop a little. He pumped it and pulled back each time. The fluid was now flowing.
So the point is not sure if there was something blocking it or if it just wasn't returning enough to take fluid onto the mc.
After the level stopped dropping using this method we bled the system again.. We broke open the bleeder... And then depressed the clutch to move as much fluid as possible. This time a full stream appeared. We repeated till fluid was clear ending with the pump pump pump,, hold and break bleeder. Did that a few times and he said clutch felt good. But he isn't familiar with the car.
I closed the bleeder and went up to try it.. Peddle felt firm right from the very top and consistent.
Put everything back together and tried it with car on. Clutch and gear changes never felt so good. And clutch grabs now at the very top instead of basically barely off the floor mat like it's been forever.
Moral of story is if your clutch is grabbing at the floor.. It needs flushed and bled. It's not that bad.
Hopefully this helps someone.















