DIY: Replacing the Clutch Slave Cylinder (Leaking clutch fluid)
Pedal feeling sticky and/or traveling to the floor? Recently replaced a leaky master cylinder and the clutch slave cylinder decided to bust a leak and start leaving puddles of brake fluid under your car like mine? Well here's your fix!
Applicable Years: 92+ Civics and Integras with hydraulic clutch lines.
Difficulty: 1 out of 5
Estimated Time: 25min
Required Parts:
- New Clutch Slave Cylinder
- Brake lube
- 10mm line wrench for the line going into the slave
- 9mm line wrench for the slave bleeder valve (assuming your using an oem slave)
- 12mm socket or wrench.
- Some hose for bleeding
- DOT 3 or 4 Brake fluid (Stick with DOT 3 if your not sure)
- A cup or bottle to catch the fluid
Steps:
0. Preliminarily if you decide to go from underneath, like me, you'll probably need to remove your splash guard, as I have mine permanently off which gives me a bit more space for repairs. Also you may want to just drain the fluid out from the slave cylinder from the get go. As you'll see in the pictures further down, mine drained itself, which why I needed a new one.
1. First thing you'll have to do is locate the slave cylinder. Since you're reading this DIY I'm just gonna assume you'd like as much help as you can get. Anyway, its located where the arrow is pointing in the below picture.
2. There it is, and as you can tell from the big puddle on the floor, it's leaking pretty rapidly.
3. At this point you'll want to slide underneath the front of the car and get your ratchet or wrench on the 2-12mm bolts holding the slave to the transmission. The fan shroud will kinda be in the way if you use a ratchet like me, but I managed to do it with some maneuvering.
4. Once you've loosened it up you can attempt to loosen the clutch line going into it with your 10mm line wrench, but I couldn't with it still stuck on the car so I just pulled it up closer to me. Once you've gotten that off it will drip so have something to catch it and just let it hang there until its empty.
5. Now onto the new slave. Mine came disassembled so you'll just need to slide the piston into the boot and grease up the inside of the boot, tip of the piston, and edge of the slave with brake grease, as stated in the honda manual.
All up in here
As stated HERE
6. Now that it's all greased up, just open the bleeder on the new slave...
By doing this you'll be able to easily compress the piston into the slave and you won't break your new cylinder.
7. Wipe off the inside of the slave housing and feel in there with a finger, that way you can understand how the piston sits in there. You should feel a little cup or spoon like piece that the piston will sit into.
8. Install the clutch line now or at least put it on loosely so that you just need to tighten it up once the slave is in it's place
9. Slide the new slave in and make sure its sitting straight, then reinstall the 2-12mm bolts and tighten up the clutch line if you haven't already. AND YOUR DONE WITH THE INSTALLATION
10. Slap that clear hose from before onto the slave bleeder valve, put the other end into a cup or bottle, grab a friend to sit in the car so they can pump the clutch pedal when you tell them to, and proceed to bleed the clutch.
BLEEDING:
11. There are a bunch of different ideas of how to bleed the clutch but this is what has always worked for me.
a. Fill the clutch master cylinder reservoir.
b. Have my helper pump the pedal with the bleeder open and the cap off the clutch master cylinder (since it was completely empty)
c. Once it started coming out of the slave bleeder I tightened the valve.
d. Top off fluid in master cylinder and secure the cap onto it
e. Have helper pump the clutch 4 times then hold it down.
f. Quickly open the valve with the clear hose still on it. (watch for bubble etc) then CLOSE the valve.
g. Have helper pull the pedal back up (it will be stuck to the floor) and repeat steps "e" and "f" but only a maximum of 3 times before adding more brake fluid to the master cylinder. This way you won't run out of fluid in their and accidentally suck air into it, causing you to have to do this process all over again
h. When there are no more bubbles coming out of the slave cylinder your clutch lines will be sufficiently bled, tighten up the valve, make sure the clutch pedal is firm and take a ride.
Review:
Overall the install is fairly straightforward, though I only replaced my slave cylinder during this DIY, I actually replaced my clutch master cylinder two weeks prior to this because it was leaking by my feet. This new master cylinder was putting out higher pressure then my old leaky one and caused my slave cylinder to spring a leak only two weeks after changing the MC, so I highly recommend changing them together, especially considering the slave cost me $15 from Oreilly's and it has a lifetime warranty. Finally be sure to double check that you tightened everything up and test it out by pushing slowly on the pedal while the car is off, if there is a leak in slave or something isn't tight, the pedal will sink to the floor similar to what it was probably doing before you changed it. Good Luck and remember u can always ask us at CC if you've got anymore questions.
Pedal feeling sticky and/or traveling to the floor? Recently replaced a leaky master cylinder and the clutch slave cylinder decided to bust a leak and start leaving puddles of brake fluid under your car like mine? Well here's your fix!
Applicable Years: 92+ Civics and Integras with hydraulic clutch lines.
Difficulty: 1 out of 5
Estimated Time: 25min
Required Parts:
- New Clutch Slave Cylinder
- Brake lube
- 10mm line wrench for the line going into the slave
- 9mm line wrench for the slave bleeder valve (assuming your using an oem slave)
- 12mm socket or wrench.
- Some hose for bleeding
- DOT 3 or 4 Brake fluid (Stick with DOT 3 if your not sure)
- A cup or bottle to catch the fluid
Steps:
0. Preliminarily if you decide to go from underneath, like me, you'll probably need to remove your splash guard, as I have mine permanently off which gives me a bit more space for repairs. Also you may want to just drain the fluid out from the slave cylinder from the get go. As you'll see in the pictures further down, mine drained itself, which why I needed a new one.
1. First thing you'll have to do is locate the slave cylinder. Since you're reading this DIY I'm just gonna assume you'd like as much help as you can get. Anyway, its located where the arrow is pointing in the below picture.
2. There it is, and as you can tell from the big puddle on the floor, it's leaking pretty rapidly.
3. At this point you'll want to slide underneath the front of the car and get your ratchet or wrench on the 2-12mm bolts holding the slave to the transmission. The fan shroud will kinda be in the way if you use a ratchet like me, but I managed to do it with some maneuvering.
4. Once you've loosened it up you can attempt to loosen the clutch line going into it with your 10mm line wrench, but I couldn't with it still stuck on the car so I just pulled it up closer to me. Once you've gotten that off it will drip so have something to catch it and just let it hang there until its empty.
5. Now onto the new slave. Mine came disassembled so you'll just need to slide the piston into the boot and grease up the inside of the boot, tip of the piston, and edge of the slave with brake grease, as stated in the honda manual.
All up in here
As stated HERE
6. Now that it's all greased up, just open the bleeder on the new slave...
By doing this you'll be able to easily compress the piston into the slave and you won't break your new cylinder.
7. Wipe off the inside of the slave housing and feel in there with a finger, that way you can understand how the piston sits in there. You should feel a little cup or spoon like piece that the piston will sit into.
8. Install the clutch line now or at least put it on loosely so that you just need to tighten it up once the slave is in it's place
9. Slide the new slave in and make sure its sitting straight, then reinstall the 2-12mm bolts and tighten up the clutch line if you haven't already. AND YOUR DONE WITH THE INSTALLATION
10. Slap that clear hose from before onto the slave bleeder valve, put the other end into a cup or bottle, grab a friend to sit in the car so they can pump the clutch pedal when you tell them to, and proceed to bleed the clutch.
BLEEDING:
11. There are a bunch of different ideas of how to bleed the clutch but this is what has always worked for me.
a. Fill the clutch master cylinder reservoir.
b. Have my helper pump the pedal with the bleeder open and the cap off the clutch master cylinder (since it was completely empty)
c. Once it started coming out of the slave bleeder I tightened the valve.
d. Top off fluid in master cylinder and secure the cap onto it
e. Have helper pump the clutch 4 times then hold it down.
f. Quickly open the valve with the clear hose still on it. (watch for bubble etc) then CLOSE the valve.
g. Have helper pull the pedal back up (it will be stuck to the floor) and repeat steps "e" and "f" but only a maximum of 3 times before adding more brake fluid to the master cylinder. This way you won't run out of fluid in their and accidentally suck air into it, causing you to have to do this process all over again
h. When there are no more bubbles coming out of the slave cylinder your clutch lines will be sufficiently bled, tighten up the valve, make sure the clutch pedal is firm and take a ride.
Review:
Overall the install is fairly straightforward, though I only replaced my slave cylinder during this DIY, I actually replaced my clutch master cylinder two weeks prior to this because it was leaking by my feet. This new master cylinder was putting out higher pressure then my old leaky one and caused my slave cylinder to spring a leak only two weeks after changing the MC, so I highly recommend changing them together, especially considering the slave cost me $15 from Oreilly's and it has a lifetime warranty. Finally be sure to double check that you tightened everything up and test it out by pushing slowly on the pedal while the car is off, if there is a leak in slave or something isn't tight, the pedal will sink to the floor similar to what it was probably doing before you changed it. Good Luck and remember u can always ask us at CC if you've got anymore questions.
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