Just put in the Valeo Clutch and flywheel set up in and when I got everything back together the clutch pedal was dead for the first half of the travel. Assuming there was air in the system we tried to bleed it (the correct way with the piston pushed in). but we had no luck and noticed that the slave cylinder was leaking a bit so I put on a new slave cylinder tonight, and tried to bleed the system again with still no luck.

My question is am I not getting it 100% bleed or does the valeo single mass clutch set up leave you with a dead spot? possible master cylinder issue?

I am thinking it is a bleeding issue and not the clutch setup, but have spent a hour trying to bleed the thing with no luck. Didn't notice any air in the system until we changed to the new slave cylinder. Should you have to bleed the system after changing the clutch?

 

There is a trick to bleeding the slave, not sure if you know or not but this helped me.

 

Take the bleed nipple off the slave cylinder. Submerge the slave cylinder completely In brake fluid. Compress and let go, repeat 3 or four times untill all the air is out. while the cylinder is still submerged put the bleed nipple back into its hole.. Bolt it onto the car, before connecting the line, bleed till no bubbles come out, gravity will work in this case.
attach the clutch line.. done.

 

Thanks guys.

I will try this tonight.

 

That's great advice. There is one more piece to the puzzle. If you get air in the master, you need to disconnect it from the bracket, feed some line from the reservoir and invert it before power bleeding.

 

I put the Valeo clutch conversion in my base Cooper about a month ago when I swapped to a Getrag from an S and I had a similar issue. Because of the trans swap, I had to disconnect the slave and install the hard line from the S setup and of course I got a lot of air in there. I don't think I lost 1/2 of the pedal at first, but probably 1/3. I waited a day, bled it very carefully again (with the piston compressed as recommended, plus waiting about 30 seconds between each bleed) and it was just about back to normal. Within a couple of days of driving, it was completely back to normal and has been fine since.

I own a restoration shop and we work on a lot of cars with hydraulic clutches. We often find they need a 2nd bleed like that.

--Carl

 

Cut a 2x4 to a length where you can jam it between your seat and the clutch pedal, then fully depress the clutch and hold it down with the 2x4. Remove the cap from the reservoir and leave it overnight. In the morning remove the 2x4, replace the cap and check it out. This was the only way to get my system finished bled after I replaced my slave. Worked like a charm!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using NAMotoring