1990 clutch has no pressure

[vegetta58]

Just moved and got my bike out of storage. About 50 miles into getting to my new house I noticed I was loosing pressure on the clutch handle. Check fluid, bleed system. Nothing. When I depress the the clutch I get a stream of fluid out of bleeder. Any ideas before I start tearing apart? Will be 1st time going into it. 28,000 miles if it matters. Thanks

[Pat Conlon]

It is common for the clutch slave to leak out the brake fluid when the bike is stored. See if you have any paint damage or cowl damage directly below the slave.
Best case, you can bleed the air out of the slave and your seal recovers.
Worst case, spend $20 and install a seal kit from RPM, call it a day.
http://rpmracingca.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Clutch%3AS%2FK

[Waiex191]

Check out pages 4 and 5 of my thread where I took apart and cleaned out my clutch slave.
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=19343.45

[vegetta58]

No, slave cylinder isn't leaking. No air in line up to the bleeder. Thanks though

[vegetta58]

So y'all think it's the slave cylinder not letting me get pressure at the lever?

[vegetta58]

Got the slave cylinder off the bike. What is holding the guts in. Or is it just seized up? If so any ideas on removal so I don't damage the housing? Thanks

[red]

Just moved and got my bike out of storage. About 50 miles into getting to my new house I noticed I was loosing pressure on the clutch handle. Check fluid, bleed system. Nothing. When I depress the the clutch I get a stream of fluid out of bleeder. Any ideas before I start tearing apart? Will be 1st time going into it. 28,000 miles if it matters. Thanks

vegetta58,

I believe it is fairly difficult (as in, against physics and gravity) to bleed a vertical hydraulic hose of any type.  Now you can get banjo bolts with bleeder fittings in them, making it much easier to do this tricky job.  Insall these bleeder banjo bolts at the master cylinder.  Then you can bleed the hydraulic line at the top of the hose, not from the bottom.  These bleeder banjo bolts typically cost US$15~$20 each, although you can pay FAR more for them, from the wrong sellers.  

As a general note, Speedbleeders.com can set you up with the one-way bleeders that make it easy to do the normal brake-bleeding job single-handed (literally).  You will probably want the bleeder banjo bolts, also.

From your description, I would suspect that the master cylinder has the problem, not the slave cylinder, but that strongly depends on whether or not there is air in the system.

Best,

[vegetta58]

Cylinder was seized up. Know about bleeding the MC. Your saying you can't bleed like a car?

[Waiex191]

I bled mine like a car.  I did use a vacuum bleeder to pull most of the fluid through first.  You can either pop it off using the clutch lever, which is not too exciting, or you can use compressed air which can get exciting if you are not careful.  I've done both. 

I found my MC was pretty clean.  The slave was not, if you saw the pictures.

[Millietant]

I had the devils own job bleeding my clutch after I'd put new a master cylinder seal/piston kit in. No matter how much fluid I pushed through and out of the bleed valve, I still had no pressure, over about 3 hours of continual bleeding, taking the slave in and off, checking for leaks etc. In the end I got a little Laser brand hand pump (as per the link below)  filled the bottle with brake fluid, connected the pump output, with a bit of bleeder hose to the open bleed nipple and pumped fluid back up the line. Within seconds, air and bubbles started popping out of the  open master cylinder top and within a few more seconds I had a fully working clutch.

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/laser-tools-multi-purpose-mini-pump-t-clas4385/?istCompanyId=a2904180-3a7d-4e56-b876-cf81c9512180&istFeedId=6fbc4b04-fd28-4ce1-8513-835c8f118690&istItemId=wptrpqiam&istBid=t&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpr-Gvr-T6gIVyO3tCh1BjAMSEAQYByABEgKkzfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[vegetta58]

Thanks. Just ordered a rebuild kit for the slave cylinder. You would think it would be a hard pull at the lever with the slave cylinder being seized up. Maybe seized up pushed out. We will see. Thanks again. I'll post when fixed what problem was. Oh yeah the slave cylinder fluid looked like clay mud

[red]

Cylinder was seized up. Know about bleeding the MC. Your saying you can't bleed like a car?

vegetta58,

Yes, you can, but air bubbles rising in the line will work against you.  With SpeedBleeders and the bleeder banjo bolt, you should be able to do a perfect job with nothing extra needed except the fluid catch bag.

Car brakes have a lot of horizontal lines, and you pump  a lot more fluid (when bleeding) than our tiny MCs can manage.  My advice is to make it easy on yourself.      
.

[krusty]

Yes, you can bleed it like a car. I have never had a problem bleeding clutch or brakes on my, so far, 5 FJs. I recently had the no pressure problem with my clutch m/c, just fitted a new seal kit, bled like I've done with cars for last 40+ years, and it was good again. I admit that the bleeding devices can make the bleeding job easier for some who find bleeding a challenge.

[woodcreekpete]

After pumping my clutch lever about 2,000 times with no success, I took a spare clutch master cover, drilled a 12mm hole in it and installed a tire valve stem. A couple of very light pumps with a bicycle pump, open bleeder, repeated once more and the job was done.

[vegetta58]

Thanks. Just ordered a rebuild kit for the slave cylinder. You would think it would be a hard pull at the lever with the slave cylinder being seized up. Maybe seized up pushed out. We will see. Thanks again. I'll post when fixed what problem was. Oh yeah the slave cylinder fluid looked like clay mud