Clutch fluid change

Technical Area Routine Servicing
2

Hi folks, going to have a stab at doing my clutch fluid and brake fluid today.
Bought a one-man kit that has a no return valve, just wondered if someone can confirm the work flow?

Clutch

  1. Lift the car & remove front right wheel
  2. Pop the lit on topup tank and remove excess old fluid with turkey baster
  3. Top up with new fluid
  4. Put bleed kit tube over the nipple on the slave cylinder and crack it off half a turn
  5. Pump clutch - check the top-up tank doesn’t run too low and add new fluid as needed
  6. Keep going until new fluid starts to come through the bleed kit then put everything back together

Brake

  1. Start with the brake furthest from the master cylinder and do pretty much the same as the clutch
  2. Remove old fluid from tank & replace with new
  3. Kit on nipple
  4. Crack off 1/2 turn
  5. Pump brake whilst checking level and topping up
  6. Do until new fluid comes through
  7. Repeat for each wheel getting closer to the master cylinder

How does that sound?

3

I would say your procedure is good. Let us know how you got on though because, when I did mine,  constantly going back to the fluid cylinder to check drove me up the wall. In the end I resorted to having a little helper to keep pressing and holding the clutch down.

4

when I did mine I changed the slave cylinder and did the seals in the master cylinder (all just in case… yea I know I go OTT :p) I just used the easy bleed kit and cracked off the bleed nipple then topped up the fluid and pumped on the clutch until no bubbles were in the pipe (while checking the level and topping up as necessary)  then quickly did up the bleed nipple and all sorted, also worked wonders when I bled each brake line to clean out the VERY old fluid :wink:

 

5

Well I’ve done the clutch, all went well! The old stuff was pretty black ??
Just taken it for a 5 min spin and it has made a world of difference. Gear change is much easier now, can’t wait to get the oil changed in it too.

Going to do the brakes tomorrow, hopefully that’ll go as smoothly.

6

All done!

The brake fluid was nowhere near as bad as the clutch fluid, still a little dirty but on the whole not too bad.

Annoyingly one of my bleed nipples was smaller than the other so a quick trip to halfords was needed to get a smaller spanner.