Hydraulic Clutch Issue

I need some expert advise and there is plenty out there. My clutch fork is moving about an inch, but that doesn't seem to be enough to disengage. I thought about tightening slave cylinder a bit, but worry that full pressure might not be applied to pressure plate while driving. Any thoughts on this? I will probably need to redesign slave mounting, but for the time being would like to see it work. Can't work on it right now, just obsessing.

Thanks, Cole

 

If it's not disengaging you need to move more fluid, master vs slave volume. If nothing is binding. Was this a matched set or did you build it yourself?

 

Maybe still some aire in the system, not easy to bleed.

You may need to push the rod in the cylinder for a proper bleeding.

m2c

 

Thanks for quick reply guys. They were a matched set. Same size bore in both. I got that info from this site when I bought them a year ago. I'm pretty sure it's bled, but I'll try some more. Is an inch of movement enough for the fork, or do I need more. What if I were to move the fork a little by adjusting the slave back. Or do you want zero pressure on the fork when the pedal is out.

 

You want zero pressure plus some play as that is where your free-play exists..........no free-play and you burn up the throw out bearing.............One inch of movement at the slave transmits to 1/2" at the throw out bearing as the ratio inside the clutch can changes to 2:1 or 1/2...........do all the bleeding you can do first........

Normally I like to see a larger clutch master bore ( more volume ) mated with a smaller slave bore.........which will make the slave travel farther. Takes about .500" to .600" of travel combined with free play to fully dis-engage the clutch disc...........on most clutches. Make sure the mount you have is pushing the slave push rod as straight as possible........any motion to the side will cut down the travel.

Regarding your frame mounted Clutch Master..........make sure the ratio and travel of your clutch pedal and where the clutch master push rod is attached to it allows for the maximum travel within the bore of that cylinder...........more volume pushed downstream means greater travel at the slave.....most systems barely have enough so don't leave any on the table!

 

Do you have a picture of the clutch master cylinder/pedal from the side? Would like to see the pedal and pushrod angle. I may be doing this in the future and don't want hanging pedals.

 

Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'll work through all these suggestions. I feel pretty confident I can make it work now. My jeep is in Central Valley and I live in AZ, so it's going to be awhile before I can work on it again.
Oldriginal86, I'll take some photos next time I'm there and you can see more detail.

 

Thank You!

 

I found some pictures on my phone. This may give you an idea of what I did. I used the stock shaft and pedals. I welded the actuator ( for lack of better term) to the shaft, then smoothed the weld on the lathe. Once I get things fine tuned, I'm going to fabricate a cover to protect it while off roading. It cured my mounting space problem. Everything lines up perfect.

 

When you get a chance you need to check this out..........

 

That's a slick setup.

If you were able to fab that up, I'm sure you'd figure this out, but if it's just a matter of not enough "plunge" and don't want to drop the coin on a bigger MC, you could always just lengthen your "actuator" for more travel. It would cause a little misalignment of the plunger that may or may not be an issue, depending how far you need to go.

 

Thanks, to everyone for the great advice. I've never built a hydraulic clutch system before. I thought I had stolen enough ideas off the site to make it work. Looking at my photo's and with your expertise I know I can get it working. The easiest thing first, more bleeding. Then I'll go from there. Thanks again.
Cole

 

If you lengthen the actuator to get more travel, you could always angle the MC up a little to match the new attachment location and arc of motion. With a remote reservoir, I don't think this would hurt anything.

 

Angling the master would work well, for lengthening the actuator. I was also thinking of lengthening the the clutch pedal shaft. Without being able to look at it, that may not be an option. Right now the pedals line up even. If I could add maybe a 1/2 " or more push. That might give more travel. But might not be possible mechanically. Thanks for the input.

 

Nice setup. Keep documenting the progress. By the time I get around to doing mine, I'll just use this thread as an instruction manual.

 

I have been thinking about something like this for a while now. When my clutch cable fails, I'm going to do something like this but without the remote reservoir and a plate steel cradle/guard.
I have a so/so clutch cable under the seat just in case.

 

my manual might be hard to read . I'll keep muddling through, until we get it right. Thanks for comments.

 

Well, I'm back at it for a couple of days. I re-read all the advice and tried to get things right. First I beefed up the rear mount of the slave as it was moving a bit. I did a little more bleeding. Still clutch not disengaging. I disconnected clutch pedal and pulled the lever where pedal inserts to see if I could push more fluid to slave. Didn't seem to change stroke on slave.

My bleeder on the slave is on the side vise the top due to space. Could that cause an issue? I'm getting less than an inch of stroke out of slave. Tomorrow, I thought I would try to manually move the fork and see if I can get clutch to disengage at all.

 

you should be able to bleed it by pushing the slave piston in and out. most newer clutches don't even have the bleeder you bleed em by cycling the slave piston.