Clutch Bleeding Troubles

[Nic01101011]

Hey,

So today I tried replacing and bleeding the brake and clutch fluid for the first time. I think I did the brakes right, but I had some trouble with the clutch.

The fluid that initially came out of the slave cylinder bleeder valve looked like really dark rusty water. I was able to drain maybe a two foot tube's length of that fluid, but then nothings coming out when I pump the clutch pedal. My procedure is like for the brakes:

1) Bleeder valve closed, have someone pump clutch several times, hold it down
2) Open valve.. but nothing comes out

Shouldn't something be coming out like with the brakes? Could this be a clog from the really bad old fluid? I tried pumping with the valve open as well and got nothing

BTW: I can drive the car just fine. In fact, it feels just like it did before I let any of the fluid out. Also, I didn't even use a complete 32oz bottle of brake fluid for the brakes, does that sounds righT?

Thanks

[jlevie]

Did you keep the reservoir full when bleeding the clutch? There's a partition in the reservoir that will allow all of the clutch fluid to be lost w/o affecting the brakes. The fluid level must be above the top of the partition to keep the clutch side full. My guess is that you ran the clutch side out of fluid.

As an FYI, a pressure bleeder makes the job of flushing the brakes and clutch much easier and there's almost no chance of running the reservoir out of fluid. Since the lifetime of brake fluid is determined by the amount of water it has absorbed (at most two years), and since brake fluid begins absorbing water as soon as the container is opened, it makes little since not to use all of a container when flushing the system. Draining a measured 200cc from each rear wheel, 125cc from each front wheel and the clutch will completely flush the system and leave 200cc for the reservoir from a liter of fluid.