Tips/Tricks to bleed the CSC?
 

I have spent a total of around 8 hours trying to get this thing bled. I got the upgraded CSC from Zspeed performance. Did everything I was told and its just not working. I even pulled out the master cylinder to ensure that everything was correct.

I was told to crack the bleeder and let it gravity drip down, well I let it sit about an hour and the res barely went down. If I pump the master cylinder (now disconnected from the RJM and just using my hand on the plunger I get a squirt of fluid. But even after doing this a bunch of times and then tightening the bleed screw there is still nothing at the pedal.

I have tried a vac pump to try and suck the fluid down with no luck. I have also tried to force it upwards using a oil can (didnt work because of the way the fittings are designed on this CSC (just leaked out around the breather fitting).

Not sure where else to go at this point, no matter what I do I cannot get any feel in the pedal.


Any tips or tricks would be much appreciated. :tiphat:


Mitch

There is a trick to it. Two people make it easier but I use a piece of wood or a neighborhood kid to help me out.

Call me

Gravity bleeding from what I've seen doesn't work very well.

IMO,

- Pump the clutch to build up pressure. Pump it a LOT (like 90 seconds straight)
- Pop bleeder valve, let air/fluid out, close as pressure drops
- Keep an eye on reservoir, make sure it stays full
- Repeat until clutch is firm

definitely much easier w/two people

Did you crack the hard line to the master cylinder to let out the bubbles first before tightening it back up and pump and bleed the slave?

Ill give you a shout here in a bit, Thanks :tup:

This is how I initially started to do it (and have done it in the past on brakes). However after about an hour of doing this my arms were jello and I gave up and went onto trying things like a vac bleeder, which also did not work.

You know I did not, that will be the first thing I do when I get home from work today.

Thanks for the suggestions/help thus far.

This is what will do it for you most likely. I heard air escaping when I did this. Then everything went smoothly bleeding at the csc

HA! This is very important advice Joe gave me.

Tighten everything up and crack the hard line to the master. You'll see it bubble. Once it goes away it'll start dripping fluid. Tighten it.

Then pump the peddle close to 30 times, and press down hard to the floor while someone cracks open the slave bleeder. You'll feel the pedal sink further down. Tighten the bleeder and repeat (manually lift the pedal from the floor). I did this at least 5 times.

All in all, roughly 30 min. to complete.

The last thing you want to deal with is air bubbles stuck in the master. This is when you never achieve resistance. When this happens, you either need to bench bleed (remove the master), or remove the linkage from the plunger and manually push it far down a few times to squeeze out the bubbles.

Also, you want to make sure the extra play up top is no more than 1" or so. You don't want a low engagement point with these cars because the CSC won't throw far enough, and you'll end up having trouble shifting. You don't want it too tight up top due to risk of overextending the CSC. So roughly 1" of play is good enough, and the resistance is tight and consistent regardless of temperature.

So just so I am on the same page just crack it and wait a bit, no need to press the plunger right?

Thanks

Mitch

No.. it'll suck in air. Keep the reservoir full as well or it'll suck in air. BTW, I revised my post.

Thanks,

I currently have the Master disconnected from my JRM and have been just manually pushing on the plunger to try and get it started. Speaking with Joe as well he was concerned that the RJM might not be allowing the plunger to come all the way out.

I think one of the issues with my Master is that it refuses to gravity bleed at all, its almost like with the snap ring and washer in there it does not allow the plunger to come out far enough to clear the reservoir port. Reguardless ill try this all again tonight.

Got it to bleed, but not in the way you would think. I pulled apart the master cylinder and took a dremel to the plunger where the rod sits in. I shaved it down a bit so that the piston would come back a little further and thus allow the fluid to flow between the reservoir and rest of the system. Once I did this and reassembled it the fluid started flowing through it and I was both able to gravity bleed and suck the air out with my vac pump. Not sure if I just had a shitty master cylinder or what. But shes back in the car and I got full pedal with no dead spots. Might order another MC just in case.

Thanks for the help!

Talk to Joe to see if there's a time frame for the Wilwood MC for our cars.

More issues... Made it exactly 3.5kms into my test drive until the whole car shut off. Waiting for a truck to tow her home and start digging into this new mess. It keeps blowing the Eng Cont 1 fuse on key on, which from my reading can be traced to a short with an 02 sensor (or melted line) I am really hoping that just one of the wires moved and melted a bit and that it is fixable. If everything under the car looks just fine signs point towards the ECM... Weird cuz it worked perfectly fine and we even let her sit and idle for 10 minutes before moving her.

arghhhh

I had no trouble with mine, I was expecting trouble but I gravity blend for a good while, then used a partner and bled about a bottle of fluid through it, works great. Sorry to see you down, that sucks.

Yeah my MC had to be faulty from factory, there is no way it was going to bleed the way it was. I am going to order a new MC and throw it in when it shows up. Until then this current one is fine in there.

I'm stuck in a spot with mine. Z Speed hd csc and z1 stage 1 clutch. I've adjusted the push rod out far enough that it bottoms out in the master instead of on the pedal assembly when pushing to get all the air out of the master. It gravity bleeds fine, and I've pushed about 750ml of fluid thru it with no bubbles with my wife working the pedal. I also cracked the hard line at the master, and got just a bit of air out of it. I get enough pressure that the clutch disengages fine to get into gear, it's just at the very end of the stroke, and after a LOT of sponginess in the pedal. I bled in all sorts of positions of adjustment on the clutch rod, and both having the pedal pushed then bleeding, and having my wife put pressure on the pedal and push it down as it bled. I don't think I'm a moron and this isn't my first go around bleeding stuff so I guess I can mostly eliminate operator error.

The two things I've read so far are don't use a vacuum bleeder, and if you reach where it won't bleed you need a new master. I had previously bled the clutch about every oil change so there's no debris in the lines (i dont think) and didn't have a stock CSC failure, so why would I need a new master? It was just fine a few days ago before I tore apart everything. Also why not use a vacuum bleeder? Will it suck air in the seals?
Any other suggestions? Drive it and let the air work out? Flip the beyotch upside down and shake it? Live with it(aaaargh)? New master?