Hey Guys,

Had the dreaded dead pedal and hard shifting on my '97 Max a couple of years ago. Turns out it was just a hose and it still cost me almost $400!

Now I have it again on my '99 and I need to take care of it myself.

On initial inspection, it looks like the small hose from the slave to the transmission as my tranny case has gunk all over it. I ordered the small stainless steel line to replace the stock one but I have some questions

1: Are there any good directions anywhere on how to check if my master cylinder & slave are good to go?

2: How about a write up on how to replace either the factory set up or the SS line mod? Would the mod be recommended for a guy with little wrench time?

3: Obviously directions on how to correctly bleed the system would be very welcome!

I refilled the resevoir with brake fluid and pumped the clutch and it did give me more resistance after awhile but only for a short time, would that be down to the air in the system? i was surprised to note that the level of fluid in the resevoir had not gone down.

This seems to be a fairly common issue with the 4th Gens, so I was surprised when I didn't find anything in the stickys on this. I was really pissed off at first as I bought a low mileage car just to avoid these problems... then I remembered that it's almost 12 years old!

Any info would be really appreciated

In the stickies: http://www.vqpower.com/v2/articles.php?article_id=62


Also, I just read and responded to a clutch system bleed thread in the last week. Search again. If you can't find it, I'll do a quick search after I'm done studying. Good luck!

I looked up the thread anyway. Read through it, some of the info might help.
Relevant Link
I would guess a faulty slave, but read through the quasi flow chart in the above thread and see if you can pinpoint it.

Bleeding the system is easy enough, but you'll need a helper.

There's a bleeder valve on the slave cylinder. 10mm IIRC, using a box end wrench, crack it loose and have your helper push the clutch. Tighten it with the pedal all the way down - held. Then have the help pump the clutch several x's and hold it on the floor. Again, crack the bleeder open and repeat this until all you get is fluid, no air. The pedal should feel firm and you should see the slave moving.

As for replacing that line - lol have fun. It's a PITA, but worth doing. Getting the old line out is mostly the difficult part. No real tricks I can think of, sorry. That link is not all that great, not very detailed and poor pictures. Oh well, we get what we can huh.

Maybe the OP can take better photos when he replaces his???

Depending on your mileage, consider replacing the slave at the same time, since it will now become the weak link in the system.

just replace the entire line with a ss one..

See sig, I have attempted a how to on this on my blog...

http://aackshunsgarage.blogspot.com/...utch-line.html

IMO the enire ss line to the master cyl is a pain and not needed as the small line replaces all the rubber anyways,, the rest is already a hard line, just more work then needed, and definitely replace the slave if yours is high miled, be patient with the bleed, will take a few times to get it all done well, and if you have enough fluid it shouldnt be an issue

its a 15 minute job to put the ss one on.. plus its only like 30 bucks..

Well I took the big girls blouse way out and paid someone to put it on for me as I didn't want to replace the hose and find out I needed the slave or somethign else to fix the problem. Turns out it was just the hose, but while it was there he checked out my air con which hasn't worked all year.

I figured that it either had a leak, or it was the compressor or something. Nope, it was a loose wire! I've been sweating my ***** off all summer because I didn't spend enough time on here!

Funny, I get into trouble spending too much time on here.

Glad you got it done. Even if it wasn't a DIY job. Not all of them can be, so don't feel bad. How much did the shop charge ya? For the line, not the A/C.

I supplied the small SS line on offer in the GD section here to them and they installed it, but not after giving me "This is the LAST time you supply parts" speech!

They checked the refrigerant level and found it was full, so they took a poke around and found a cable without a home. Plugged it in and checked again... volia! ice cold air!

All for less than $126

As for the OEM replacement hose (from the slave to the tranny) cheapest I found it anywhere was DAVEB who had it for $42.50

I was readin this post and got wicked happy I have a 97 and changed my slave I cant build a pedal and saw a second bleeder I heard the best way to bleed the slave is to gravity bled it but pump the pedal for the one on my inner fender idk what to do I been so stressed about this whole thing and been freaking out lol can someone please message me or something cause Idk how to check this post again this is the whole reason I signed up for this site was this problem well thanks for lookin this over and wish someone could help me

The main benefit isn't only the fact you're deleting the rubber lines ya know...

When you remove all of that EXTRA piping you save allot of time when it comes to bleeding.

BTW, I have a pretty much new slave cyl -> check box hose for sale if anyone doesn't want to fool around w/ SS lines and keep everything stock.