After reading about the 1o1 different ways that people have come up with trying to bleed the Fiero’s hydraulic clutch, and trying them all with no avail, I read about a pressure bleeder that was available to shops that another Fiero owner took his car to for a professional bleed and hopefully the end to all headaches.

Being that I like a lot of others here @ PFF are on a BUDGET, and the fact that with a car in the garage and no clutch, I'm not headed to a shop anytime soon – I came up with this:

Items required:
COKE Bottle ( Diet or Regular )
GATORADE Bottle ( your personal favorite flavor )
2 ( Two ) Basketball inflator needles
Plastic Hose connectors ( assorted )
1 ( one ) Tire pump – Gauge not required, but is nice to have
Assorted Lengths of Hose
Brake Fluid

As you can see by the pictures, you are going to hook the bike pump so that it will pressurize the COKE ( Diet or Regular remember ) and force fluid from the COKE bottle into the Clutch Master Cylinder.
Poke a little hole through the rubber seal inside the Master Cylinders rubber cap so that the fluid from the COKE bottle will be fed into the Master Cylinder. ( Ensure that the COKE Bottle DOES NOT run out of fluid, or you are going to be forcing air into the system. )

Now on my gauge, this setup will hold ~2o PSI before the seal around the Master Cylinder starts to leak and causes one heck of a mess. Your vehicle may be different, and this is going to be where the gauge is nice to have, so that you can go to just before your leak point, and then walk back to the Slave Cylinder.

Now at the back of the car with the Slave Cylinder installed, attach a hose on the purge port and to a bottle that will catch the fluid that you are draining out. A clear tube is good here, as you are able to see the air that is coming out of the Slave Cylinder. While watching the gauge on the bike pump, open the purge port till you see that you are at about 3-5 PSI and close. Ensure that you get a good seal on the Slave Cylinder Purge Port, as it is very easy to allow air to get into the system ruining your efforts.

I personally like to depress the clutch pedal very slowly while the Slave Cylinder Purge Port is open, so that I am able to get the fluid out of the Clutch Master Cylinder. I performed this ~3 times, and have had great results thus far.

This is also the case for the Slave Cylinder. I was able to remove a small amount of air from the cylinder into the purge lines by manually depressing the lever. Again, this is where the clear bleed line will come in handy, as you are going to want to ensure that the air that you have removed is not going to be sucked back into the system when you allow the cylinder to return to it’s original position.

I have done this on numerous occasions, and this has worked for me a great number of times and thought that if you are at your wits end, give this a whirl and see if it can’t help you out. There’s nothing like running through a couple of COKE bottles full of fluid, and when the systems locked down, you depress the clutch pedal to get a great amount of resistance – knowing that the air is gone, and your ready to bill only for an hours worth of work, and not an afternoon.

Lord knows that the day that I decided to try this, I was almost contemplating swapping over to an automatic transmission.

GL;
--Allen

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Nice!

What do you do about the hole you now have in your MC cap?

quote Originally posted by maryjane: What do you do about the hole you now have in your MC cap?

Good question; I just checked on my 2nd GT ( Getrag Transmissions in both situations ) and it seems that that one as well has the hole in the Master Cylinders cap. It's just big enough to put the basketball pump adapter into with a little "nudging."

There is now a little hole that I created in the seal that is in the center of the rubber piece, but I think that this is so small that it will not matter. I think that the hole that is in the cap allows for the movement of the inner rubber piece while the clutch is in operation as to not create a lock in the system.

Downside, I might get a little brake fluid out of the hole, but in all honesty, I think that the likely hood of that is Slim to none, and I just heard that Slim headed out!

--Allen

Perhaps a second rubber piece is in order for the cap. If the system is not sealed, moisture will attack the fluid turning it black and rusting out the master and slave. A little hole like that... might be ok, but its the only thing that I would have to think twice about. But other then that, seems pretty innovative. I just can't imagine what kind of trouble you must have gone through to warrant an invention

^^^
For the Weekday Crew

As goofy as that looks Positive pressure bleeding IS the way to do it !!!

I used the "bug sprayer" method and I have to say.....OH WOW !!!!! BEST Pedal I have ever had!!!

Oh and I was just kidding about the goofy thing

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88 GT, 3800SC, Getrag 5sp. Custom

That's great! Thanks!!

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Huh?

Did you get explicit written permission from the coca-cola bottling company to use the rights to thier product ?!?! :@

the hole in the rubber seal should close itself up after removing the needle and do a reasonable job of keeping moisture out.

HI there, I did the bleeder thing like this. It looks it works great. however. I have the second gen master clutch cyl. i did this last night and dag nabbit, the master cyl went blowing fluid out the base of the master cyl resivoire. so this was after i rebuilt it AND I barely even put that much pressure through. but it did work .

So I will be replacing the master cyl on my clutch soon.

[This message has been edited by nyte2000 (edited 07-28-2005).]

I love it! Things really do go better with Coke (bottles), it seems. Great idea !

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quote Originally posted by cptsnoopy: the hole in the rubber seal should close itself up after removing the needle and do a reasonable job of keeping moisture out.

would make more sense to get a spare cap and seal to use just for this application

Ok, guess what all, my slave cyl pin is all the way out. hmmm. so, my master cyl would not go in when pressed on, then after bleeding system, realizing that the slave cyl pin is out freely moving. I guess I am giong to replace that too today . man . but at least the bleeding works great. hehe.

From an earlier thread...

This is a diagram of the basics of the eezi-bleed system, which I made myself.
:
The clutch fluid is in the first bottle,which should hold at least two times the amount of fluid required to fill the complete system, to avoid running out of fluid, with a tube going in to supply a low air pressure to drive the fluid right through the master cylinder, clutch line and slave cylinder.The air supply tube must remain above the level of the clutch fluid, to prevent air getting forced into the fluid.The master cylinder filler cap I used is an old one, with a tube forced through the top, and then glued into place.When the bleeding has been completed, it is replaced with the original cap.I always remove the bleed nipple in the slave completely.It can get a bit messy with the expelled fluid, but I always use a rubber tube which fits into the bleed nipple orifice, to carry the fluid to a suitable collecting canister.Never re -use old brake fluid collected this way, even if it looks good..it is not re-usable.
When you remove the adapted master cylinder filling cap, you will have to remove a small amount of fluid, and use a cloth to catch any spillage...clutch fluid damages paintwork immediately..so take care.
If you do spill any, rinse it immediately with lots of water.
I always park the car on an incline, and jack up the rear driver's side, to insure the slave cylinder is pointing downwards, which allows the air in the slave cylinder to escape from the bleed nipple orifice.
I use a small 12 volt electric tyre compressor to provide the very low air pressure needed, to push the fluid through...don't do it with a high pressure...you can force the seals too much, causing serious damage to them..and spray fluid everywhere!!
I have used this method for years, and with adapted brake master cylinder covers, can use it on brake systems too. If you wish, it is possible to evacuate all the old fluid from the system in this way..which is a good idea, in my opinion.

fierofetish

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RESPONSIBILITY WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING.USE IT ALL THE TIME !!!!.

[This message has been edited by fierofetish (edited 05-29-2005).]

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fierofetish.PFF'S self-confessed Snowbird!!

Responsibilty: the solution for our World's Dilemmas..

You sure you aren't puttin Meth in the brake system are you Allen?

I'm going to rig something similar for my cars.
TG

[This message has been edited by TennT (edited 07-29-2005).]