The Dreaded 240D Clutch Bleed Gone Wrong
 

Howdy all. Wanted to preface this question by saying that Ive spent the past couple of hours looking over the forums for an answer to this particular problem, but no luck.

Was driving home the other day when the clutch started to get soft. By the end of the night, I couldnt get it into gear. Had to turn the car off, put it into gear, and go. The car would even start moving while I had the clutch pedal fully engaged.

Checked the steel line behind the pedals and was wet. Changed the Master Clutch Cylinder with relative ease.. Last step was to bleed the clutch line.

6 hours later and half a gallon of break fluid all over my garage and no success. I went with hooking a hose to a brake caliper and the slave cylinder. Loosened each bleeder nut and slowly pumped the breaks. Sprayed everywhere.

Picked up a new hose, attached some clamps and got everything as snug as can be. Loosened each and still sprays everywhere!

Ive tried taking the slave cylinder bleed bold out completely just to see if I could get a gravity feed. Nothing.

Ive tried putting a pressure pump on the brake fluid reservoir to see if I could force some fluid through the line to the slave. Nothing. Just holds pressure.

Is there an obvious step in the process that Im missing? Ive bled breaks plenty of times with no issue, but no luck with this.

Does the clutch need to be engaged? Does the car need to be in neutral? Could there be an actuator in the slave cylinder that is stopping fluid from flowing?

I am stumped!

When you say you put a pressure pump on it, are you talking about something like a power bleeder? I've always used a power bleeder to bleed clutches, makes quick work of it - the 240d's I've done have taken 2-3 minutes. I have heard that the job is almost impossible on a 240d without a power bleeder.

Yes, it was a power bleeder. Something similar to this;

http://www.**********.com/UserData/Images/Large/4079.jpg

It would just build pressure but nothing would come out. I pumped it up to just under 20 psi and it just sat there not losing pressure. I even did it with the slave cylinder bleed screw completely out but nothing. Blocked somewhere I suppose.

Yeah that sounds like something's not quite right. I wonder if the slave has failed?
Did you bench bleed the master prior to installing it?

Here is a good Clutch bleeding video.

BMW, VW, Porsche Clutch Bleeding - YouTube


You have to bleed from the bottom up to push out the air. I tried to bleeding it with my Motive pressure bleeder from the top. blew out a lot of fluid, but still didn`t get it to work.

Tried the gravity method and it didn`t work either, yet heard of others doing it and it worked.

Bleeding using the R/F Caliper method, would be best to flush the Brakes first so you are not recirculating dirty contaminated fluid into your new system.

Answers might be slow coming, it is the week end.

Charlie

I didnt bench bleed the MC prior to installing. How do you go about doing that?

I did try bleeding from the bottom up with the F caliper. I connected a hose and even used clamps to secure each end but it still sprayed everywhere. Im guessing something is blocked along the line. I picked up a new slave cylinder as well. Might toss that on to see if it helps.

I did notice that when I had the steel line off the MC it would flow break fluid through it when the clutch was depressed.

Upshift, did you have the clutch engaged for disengaged when you used the power bleeder?
Does it even matter?

I have had a slave hold clutch pressure with the bleeder completely removed. Whether blockage, corrosion, whatever, the bleed screw through hole was jammed tight.

The result was I replaced a master, and could not rebleed, similar to your situation, line from the brake caliper would pop off, nothing would gravity bleed. After hours of struggle, huge brake fluid mess, little bits of torn out hair floating around, walls washed with stale hate and rage, every expletive I could think of used, you name it.

Id wager you are suffering from a similar problem if you removed the bleed screw completely and it wouldn't even drip, id replace the slave and start with all new.

Ill give the slave a replacement, toss on the power bleeder and see how it works out. Much appreciated!

Good luck!

Once I swapped out the slave, I think it took 8-12 brake pedal pumps to fill the system via the MB PITA method described in the dsm.

There are no answers....why is the sky blue? Why doesn't this bleed?

I had one bleed that took 5 minutes and one that took 5 hours. Both were from the caliper.

You might look for a post by "Beagle" a couple of years ago. He had the best theory, IMO. Whether you can get it to work, I don't know.

I finally got it done! I never thought this would be a 15 hour job, but its done. I ended up replacing the slave clutch cylinder as well and that fixed it. The trouble was in getting the steel line off the old one. Ended up having to remove the whole line, put the nut that attaches to the slave into a vice and had at it. A proper pain in the ass, but she shifts as smooth as can be. All of your help is much appreciated, thanks!

Glad you got it worked out!

Good to hear you got her up and running.

When I used the Power Bleeder from the top, I had the Clutch Disengaged. Lots of fluid came out the Slave nipple, but wouldn`t push out the air.

Charlie

Glad you got yours up and flying! I know they can be a challenge. Mom said that things like this "build character".

I'll have an interesting challenge coming up. I'm using the M-B slave but the Chevrolet S-10 master. It might be easier or it might be a living Hell. I'll post the process in my build thread. At least I have separate brake and clutch master reserviours (where's spell check?)!

Dan