jwetering

So I replaced the rear brake pads today and of course I had to retract the piston into the calliper.

No problem once I figured out how to do that - I bought a cube of death, modified it a bit and it worked fine.

Problem is though that after I pumped the brakes and ran the hand brake mechanism to seat the pads, the clutch would no longer disengage.

Like somehow I pushed air into the clutch hydraulics. Lord knows how that happened - the clutch fluid take-off is on the bottom of the reservoir.

Clutch to the floor - can't engage gears, hear the synchros whining. Classic loss of clutch hydraulics.

Anyway - I pumped the clutch pedal a bunch and after a while the forward gears started engaging ok...but I still can't get reverse.

so I jacked up the car and took off the rear belly pan thinking I would pressure bleed the clutch hydraulics real quick.

Surprise - no clutch slave visible anywhere - WTF is the little bastard? I know it's there somewhere and I hear through the grapevine it's on top of the bell housing (thanks Audi).

Any tips for finding the bleed screw?

indoor

Scroll down in this post for pics(crappy, but might help):
https://www.audiworld.com/forums/aud...eding-2775800/

Or here: quattroworld.com Forums: Here's that view of the clutch bleeder screw from the passenger side...

To reach it from under the car, remove axle heat shield on driver's side(3 Allen bolts reached with ratchet and lots of extensions or one really long extension) and put the shifter in reverse.

jwetering

Hey indoor - thanks for the links. I had found one of them already, but the other one was new.

Neither of them are much help to be honest.

I found it in the end - but I never did see it - I did the whole job blind. I did not remove the axle scatter guard and I still managed to get both hands on the little b@stard

For posterity:

1) Car up on jackstands, lying under the car with head under the drivers side axle and feet sticking out under the passenger fender.

2) See the steel hydraulic line running above the axle and follow it with your left hand until you find the slave.

3) Stick your right hand behind the A-arm (to the rear of the car) and up and around the exhaust pipe. Find your left hand with your right hand.

4) Feel around for the little rubber cap that protects the bleed valve.

5) Put a 9 mm box end on the hex part. There's actually lots of room to swing your 9 wrench up there.

6) Put some hose on the nippple. I used clear vinyl hose - 1/4 inch i guess, maybe it's 3/8 - dunno it fit nice and tight. Ran that into a big bottle.

7) Then I loosened the screw a half turn.

8) Then I pressurized the reservoir using my home built pressure bleeder.

9) Nuthin. No flow. More pressure until the hose blew off the reservoir lid (my homebuilt setup has a barbed connector epoxied into an old reservoir lid - no clamp) More than enough pressure but no flow.

10) Put on some light pressure and pumped the clutch pedal a few times. - got some flow - just a few millilitres from what i could tell, but flow for sure.

11) Closed the bleed screw, checked the clutch function - perfect. Better than before even.

So it didn't go to plan but the clutch works great. Not sure WTF was wrong with it. Big mystery but it's all good now.


I never saw the slave and I can't imagine how I would be able to see it. Maybe with the scatter shield removed I could have sort of seen it - but taking that shield off would have been a beetch.

You know, this is my wife's car. I like it fine, but she really likes it so I keep it running for her so because I love her. But.....

The car is just unpleasant to work on. I'm sorry, but it is. Every job turns into a weird blind layered mess. I drive a Porsche 996 myself and I do all of my own maintenance on it and it's a dream to maintain. Beautifullt arranged so that everything can be reached (well almost everything). Yes I swear when I work on it sometimes - but I don't feel like killing myself. I spent an hour and a half looking for this damned slave cylinder. Why is it hidden?!?

...and don't get me started on needing three different tools to undo four different fasteners to remove the belly pan. Holy sheep turds on a toothpick.

I felt better after a nice drive though. Car runs great and it really does drive well.

indoor

You can see it from under the car. And from the position you are talking about. You need two GOOD lights. One on top of the engine, one under. Again: car in reverse! Why? The red thing I keep pointing at in those pics is the linkage shifter (or whatever is called). Once in reverse you have more room(to see and work). I did it both ways: with the axle shield on and off. Both are a pain

The belly pan is a project on itself. To take off and put back on. I hate myself for putting it back on, because I need an oil change