[A4] Clutch Woes - Round 2

Richard Hurt rnhurt at gmail.com
Tue Jun 3 19:11:34 PDT 2008


OK, I just replaced both the master & slave clutch cylinders on my '98 Q 30v
and boy was it fun!  The master was by far the hardest and took a couple of
hours.  The secret to my installation was to use the firewall seal/steel
washer off of the old master.  The new seal was too big for me to get in
properly.  I'm talking about the seal that goes around the main line against
the firewall - it only keeps out the rain and drafts and should be fine to
use the old one.  The slave was really not too bad at all.  I took off the
drivers side front tire and had my Dad guide me in.

Now for the big question: how the hell do you bleed the clutch system!?!?!
We tried the old 2-man manual method but didn't get anywhere.  We also tried
the tube in a mason jar method with about the same results.  I looked a
little bit on-line and it seems like our cars (+ SAAB & Volvo) require a
pressure bleeder.  You can't use a vacuum bleeder because it just sucks the
juice out of the master cylinder and I know that the manual method doesn't
work.  All we got were some light puffs of air coming out of the system but
the pedal still drops right to the floor with no resistance at all.

Can anybody point me in the right direction here?  Any recommendations on a
pressure bleeder?  How about a DIY model?  The manual says it needs a
pressure of 32 psi but that seems quite high to me.

Thanx!
  Richard


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