In what seems like never ending issues with this car --

I bled the clutch for what looked to be the first time in a long, long time. I used the power bleeder, making sure the clutch portion of the brake reservoir was full when I did it. Pressurized, and cracked open the bleeder valve on the slave. Tons of air came out with the old fluid, and I bled until I saw no more air, and closed it up.

When I went to go to test the pedal however, everything is about twice as soft as it used to be. I don't see how this is possible when the fluid before this stuff had so much air in it before. It doesn't feel BAD per se, just super soft. The clutch is an Exedy twin. no changes other than bleeding.

Bonus is that it also squeaks now, with no change except the bleed.

Unfortunately I can't drive it until I get my throttle body back, but anyone have any ideas on how this makes sense? FWIW I tried pressure bleeding again, and bled a good amount - no air coming out, and still a soft pedal.


In summary, after bleeding:
1) pedal is soft. bled 3 times now, twice with pressure, once manually. no air, pedal soft.
2) clutch squeaks - it's something inside the housing. never squeaked before.

 

Try to bleed the old fashion way and see if you get same results.

May be a crack in the line or a bad slave/master as well.

 

will do that. would a bad slave/master be something that manifests AFTER a bleed?

 

Could be, usually you will see it leaking under the dash or on your foot... as stated try bleeding to old fashioned way...Pump it up several times, just barely crack the bleeder screw and try and bleed, that way air comes out but very little can get back in. good luck.

 

no leaks and it felt fine beforehand. I guess I got air in the system while I was pressure bleeding.. will give the manual bleed a shot tonight

 

The clutch master on these cars can be very tricky. I've noticed that sometimes it gives me a hard time and little air pockets pop out of the clutch master when I'm filling the reservoir. Try squeezing the hose that goes from the brake master to the clutch master a few times to see if it jars any bubbles loose.

 

before bleeding or during? I'm assuming you mean right at the hose where it connects to the MC?

 

Fill the master all the way to the top of the reservoir when bleeding and make sure it doesn't get too low to grab any air. Air seems to get caught in it easy since it shares fluid between the brakes and clutch.

If you still have issues:

Check hard line for leaks. Seems to happen on quite a few cars with mileage.

Check both slave and master for leaks.
As mentioned if the master is bad, you can sometimes see fluid on the rod connected to the pedal.
Slave usually leaks at the plunger and/or the banjo fitting.

If you still have issues, you may have to starting looking at the clutch itself. May be a throwout bearing issue or an issue with the pressure plate.

 

thanks for the input. hopefully it's air... the clutch felt fine before bleeding, then got soft so I'm assuming it's something I did. car only has 30k so I don't imagine it's mileage, and the clutch is pretty much new, an exedy twin with brand new TOB and act monoloc when installed. Probably 1000 miles on it, and raced 3x with no issue. only after the bleed did I feel it get soft...will look for leaks but I doubt I've got any, didn't have an issue before.

 

Yeah hopefully its just air. Seems so since it was fine before unless something got disturbed and was already on the verge of leaking/breaking.

30k. Must be nice lol.

OEM throwout?

Do you have a clutch fork stop?

 

yes OEM throw out. no clutch fork stop, I had one but stopped using it when I got the ACT monoloc.

What it probably is is that I replaced the brake master cylinder as I was doing all this as well. Obviously potential for a lot of air to be introduced to the system with that swap. I pressure bled until I didn't see air last night but it's possible something is still there I guess.

 

Oh ok. Was going to say check fork stop position.

Yeah that introduces a lot of air. If I do something like that, I just open the bleeder and pump the pedal with it open just to get as much of the large air pockets out as possible. Then bleed as normal.

Try that.

 

thanks will do!

 

okay i bled a few times, got some more air out, but the clutch is still soft - the biggest difference from before - my clutch never made noise before - now whatever is inside the housing is squeaking a lot - squeaks when my gf pushes down on the pedal, and squeaks when i open the bleeder - what is in there that would squeak? i guarantee it never did that before