master or slave (or more bleeding?)

[Galaxie427]

Hi all,

I've read nearly every thread I can find on the wonderful Ranger hyd clutch setup. Here's some backstory:

Drove my "new" (to me) 93 Ranger on a 640 mile round trip. 2.3, 2wd, 5 speed. About 4 hours into the trip, the clutch feels funny and I can't bang in or out of gear without a lot of drama. I begin to match speeds and forget about the clutch, and start it in gear. Let it sit overnight at the thotel, and it worked fine the next morning. For about an hour..........and the pedal was bad. Now, mind you, I could disengage the engine about halfway, meaning I could step on the clutch and still hold the truck with the brake. Yeah, not real nice to the already worn out clutch and trans, but hey, I was 320 miles from home.

SO. I read all the horror stories about Ranger clutches, bleeding hyd systems, etc. I went out and bought a new master cyl, seeing how that's a lot easier than having to drop the trans. Well, I think the slave is bad, since the pedal still sucks. Or does it? I'm fairly sure it's not bled right.

ANYWAY.......my question is, how does one know which is bad, the master or the slave? No leaks anywhere, plenty of dirty juice in the resevior. BTW, the dirty juice make me feel good about hte master replacement; I figured the seals were bad, causing the blackened brake fluid. But after my feeble bleeding attempts under th truck, I see lots of the same nasty juice coing out of the bleeder. Damn.

So, what do you think? If anyone wants a 93 Ranger in exchange for a running anything, let me know! So far, I hate this truck.

Thanks,
Pete

 

[pcollins]

open the bleeder with a buddy, and have him keep the resivoir full until until clean fluid starts coming out of the slave. And did you bench bleed the master before installing it?

 

[bhawk]

I've gone through replacement of both, the slave 2 years ago, and the master a few weeks ago. Here's my take. If the clutch pedal feels good and has a feeling of pressure all the way down from top to bottom, and you still have a clutch that won't disengage, I'd say its the slave. That was our experience 2 years ago.
A few months ago, the pedal started to feel funny, not the same. Then about 2 weeks ago, the pedal felt real different, spongy, especially at the top. When that happened, we could not shift into reverse without shutting down the engine first, and shifting into first was about the same difficulty.
This weird feeling on the pedal turned out to be a failed master cylinder
So, I'd suspect in your case the master.
But, they are real hard to bleed on the bench. I almost gave up trying to bench bleed it. But I gave it one last try using a vacuum pump on the resevoir hose. I applied vacuum to that hose and let it off, did this about 3 times. Of course, since the quick connect hose was on and closed, I didn't suck any fluid thru, but after I began to bleed the master according to the instructions, I saw many air bubbles come up the resevoir tube when I started. I think the vacuum pump must have at least moved the trapped air to a spot where they could escape.
Remember, after you properly bleed the master cylinder on the bench, it should have no more than 4 mm. of free pedal travel downward before it is rock hard. I suspect you didn't achieve that and you still have air in the master.
This means removal of the master, and bench bleeding again. Don't even try to bleed the air out throught that bleed screw at the end of the slave. Air trapped in the master will never get there. That bleed screw is only good for removing air that got into the line between the quick connect coupler on the pressure hose and the bleed screw itself.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Another thing to check for is; The flange is broken. The bolt that holds the master to the fire wall on my b-II was doing nothing to hold the master from moving. I screwed it down with some metal plumbers strapping and it's still working 9 months later. Also, in my research, I heard of the firewall flexing enough to make clutch unusable.
Good luck,

Richard

 

[Galaxie427]

I thought about bench bleeding, but I didn't for two reasons:

1) the instructions did not say to do it (and they specifically said to bench bleed the slave); yeah, I know it's a cop out, but it leads me to point #2.

2) didn't see how to do it, since the port going to the clutch is wide open. Do I just make some sort of tube to stick in there loosely to go back to the resevoir? Once I take that out, I suspect the fresh resevoir juice will trickle out of there all over the firewall, while I wrestle this MC back under the brake booster.


I wasted the roll pin that holds the line in the MC. Right now I have a temporary cotter pin in there (diameter fits perfect). At least I have lots of skill putting the MC in and out!!!

Here's to hoping I don't need to pull the trans....... as soon as I get the clutch working, there's a good chance I'm going to try to sell it. Too much work in too short a time to make this deal worth it.

Thanks!!!
Pete

 

[pcollins]

This is how you bench bleed the master. Its the best way to do it. Should always bench bleed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgNTDGwcjZc

 

[bhawk]

WOW, is that video good. I wish I had watched that before I installed my master a couple weeks ago. I ended up getting that kind of "hard pedal" after about an hour of bench bleeding the master, but with the way he does it, I can see it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. Super thank you for posting that link. Also a big thanks to Perfection Clutch for posting that video on Youtube.

 

[AllanD]

The problem with bleeding the clutch is all the people who INCORRECTLY believe that bleeding them using techniques that work on brake systems...

And then have trouble...

They sorta get a peddle then open the bleeder screw one more time and it all goes away....

If you sorta get a peddle STOP, don't touch the bleeder screw again, just push the pedal and release it

releasing it SUDDENLY by slipping your foot off the pedal and letting it snap upwards is often effective....

The problem is that sitting stationary any minute ammount of "fuzz" on a brand new clutch disc can cause enough drag to spin the inputshaft just enough to make it a true bastard to shift into 1st from neutral, at that point DRIVE it.

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