Hi all, I'm in need of some expertise please. I just changed my sons slave cylinder and reservoir on his 03 mini S. Bled it with the slave cylinder compressed. bled from slave fitting at the bottom up to the reservoir. Pedal was good and stiff, returned well. Test drive seemed good, shifted as normal, no slipping at all ... Now after the 10 miles it wont shift into any gear, unless car is turned off. Pedal still feels firm and returns to the up position, but just cant get the shifter to go into any gear. Any idea what I'm doing wrong here. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

maybe incomplete bleed? the slave cylinders on these cars are notoriously difficult to bleed properly; lots of posts on this. not sure why it would have been fine initially and then lost pressure. did you use a good bleeder? when i changed my slave cylinder, i was never able to sufficiently bleed it until I bought the BMW bleeding tool.

 

sorry to ask you a different topic. what made you change the slave cylinder? did your clutch pedal feels sticky or makes squeaky noise before you replaced it?

 

 

Can i ask you what was your issue?

 

I was replacing the slave cylinder and I didnt get the new one on fast enough and some fluid came out of the master.

 

Throwing this on this post to help those who come behind me. Clutch replacement led to slave cylinder replacement. Bled and bled and bled (wound up with a complete fluid change in the process). Still had about half-pedal, and engagement about 1-2" off the floor. It was a little better if I pumped the clutch pedal about 20 times (read this on one of the eleventy-hundred other posts I read on clutch replacement and slave cylinder bleeding). I drove it quite a bit yesterday, wasn't too worried since I'd read so many posts about "it gets better over time."

Last night when I parked her in the garage, I pinned the clutch pedal to the floor with a 2x4, and left it for almost 24 hours. Got in to drive it, and it was even worse today. Felt like about half of the clutch pedal travel was free-play, and engagement was firm, but 1" off the floor at most. While driving away from the garage, I slipped my toe under the pedal and pulled it up to full extension... And it's perfect. Full pedal travel, engagement is at about midpoint of travel, it's firm, it's absolutely what I want. Had to relearn driving it today because I got used to the engagement being so quick yesterday.

So, rather than starting a new thread to share my experience, I picked a thread to endorse the "brace the pedal all the way down" overnight method.

I'm new to Minis, but have been on other car forums for years. I believe in sharing experiences so that others can benefit. Not much to offer so far, but it's all I've got.

 

Nice post. Glad it worked out. I rad about this approach but had trouble rigging a 2x4 to fit snugly unless I pressed it up against the front of my seat, which I didn't want to do. how did you set that up?

 

I wadded up a bath towel to pad the seat.

Oh, and I ended up not using a 2x4. I used a section of shop vac tubing instead.

 

Glad I found this thread.

My car was making a Waaauuuuuhhhh sound starting in first gear unless I held the clutch in for a bit longer than I'd like and getting the revs up between 3-4K. It started happening a bit in the 2-3 and 3-4 shift, right at the last bit when the clutch pedal was near to returning back to full height.

I decided to bleed the slave cylinder. Did the 2-man method like brakes, and tons of air bubbles came pouring out while the fluid dribbled. But the pedal stayed on the floor. Closed the valve and lifted the clutch pedal with my foot. Was able to get the pedal back, but then tried to bleed it again and the pedal stayed on the floor. I could pull it back up after closing the valve, but it never would recover on its own. It's sitting in the garage now with the 2x4 method.

I may still need to pop a power bleeder on the brake reservoir and pull the slave our of the trans case to clamp-compress it like I've seen on the Gen1 videos.

What's everyone's thoughts on the condition of my slave cylinder. There's no obvious signs of leaking. Was the Waaaauuuuuhhhh sound a sign of a bad slave cylinder or just air in the system?

 

 

Kind of like Chewie complaining while working on the Falcon.