How simple! Lessons of how 8 hour clutch change took 4 days...

Greetings and salutations

Pain in the butt week, these things always take longer than you thought, why does it always seem that you have to train the weasels to instruct the monkeys to guide the elephants so that you can start wrangling the alligators? And then drain the swamp!

Haynes manuals are nice, but I want more pictures and counts (as in "Remove the 13 bolts as located in picture 8-11c" Personal gripe.) It would have been nice if I had known that the bolt holding the shifter to the tranny was an eccentric cam with a flat side.

Anyway, we removed the transmission with the usual amount of fuss and bother, seeing as how neither of us had work on a Mazda/ranger before.

Clutch looks "okay" for another 30 thousand miles, as was throw out bearing. Pilot bearing "not so good". As in "here's a roller bearing. and this looks like part of a roller bearing. And that may have been a roller bearing." My friend Carlin looks in and see what he thinks is a"notch" where the bearing is suppose to go "oh crap, is gouged out!" But it is not, because more cleaning (CRC Spraykleen brake cleaner is his tool of choice.) reveals - a part number! That's the outer race! Cool. attack with rotto zip, out in seconds. Replace pilot bearing, clutch plate, pressure plate, and slave cylinder. Keep old parts as "spares". Or for an art project. Or something. At this point, we hit a problem. Getting the new rear seal in. It is, a tight fit. Not cooperating. Carlin cuts 4x4 block, and sets up the lathe - he'll make the tool! Neighbor comes over, "Oh, I may have a right sized socket for it." He does, so there is no need to turn a custom wooden seal setter. All back together, fill tranny with ATF till it leaks out. Here is a word to wise - "puppy training pads". Or incontinence pads. Get them in pet supplies or pharmacy at Wally World or finer stores everywhere. Thin absorbent pad on an impermeable barrier. About two feet square - holds oil, brake fluid, puppy pee, whatever. and you just roll it up, toss it in the dumpster - and anyone who sees it thinks "Ooh, they have a new puppy". Or maybe "I see grandmother came for a visit." Anyway, cool things. Also good for any project involving fluids - like cleaning guns, dying Easter eggs.

Add oil to the tranny, go to bleed the system. First error - drained the old fluid out. At 3 in the morning. it is not the time to try and figure out "now what?" or "what is problem?" Search the net in the morning - find problem. The Master Clutch Cylinder has the openings at the bottom of the cylinder, with no way to release the air bubble trapped at the top. There are several nice videos which show you how to bench bleed the system, but there is the small problem of getting it out. The manual tells you to unbolt the fluid reserve, and "working nearby, unbolt the cylinder." Ummm, no. Because while the reservoir is on the fender, the cylinder is on the firewall. Under the Brake Master Cylinder With Vacuum Boost, and A Black Box of Electrical Stuff. ('Wo ist chain saw'?) Another word to the wise - eat something during the day. Soda pop doesn't count. Low blood sugar - bad.

Anyway There is a Simpler Way to bleed Master Cylinder. (Yeah for Gunner for passing this along to an idiot in his third day on his project.)

1.Make sure the reservoir is filled with brake fluid 2.lay on the floor with your flash light. 3.Take a snap ring plier and remove the snap ring from the master cylinder...around the rod that goes into the hole.. 4 ..and gently pull out the rod..the rod that the pedal is connected to. Lift the pedal slowly until the cup seal comes up out of the hole.
  1. When brake fluid starts leaking out on your carpet..gently slide it all back into the cylinder and then put the snap ring back in place.

All of this is good . save that there is a need to be a microcephalic midget contortionist with good vision, to see where things are. At least it always seemed that I was too far away for the close up lenses, and to close for the distance lenses. More by accident than design, I had my "dollar two ninety" cheaters - which let me actually see what I was trying to work on. (But boy, do you get sea sick when you look anywhere else ...) Only I still can't see where that C-clip is actually at, and which way it is, and ... scream, cry, wail, go watch TV rather than throw expensive stuff.

Carlin comes home at 0ne am (He's been out fixing fences for the school marm. He is a man of many talents.), sends me to bed - we will tackle this in the morning. Promptly at 4 (Mornings sometimes come late round these parts.) we set to work again, At six foot two Carlin is a bit tall for a midget, but he manages. Gets clip out. Now, here is where the "puppy pads" really come in useful. Not only to protect the carpet, but to protect the paint. cut a small hole in the center of one, and slide that over the fluid reservoir, absorbent side up.. You now have a "surgical drape" isolating the reservoir, so that when the fluid spurts back, or you spill brake fluid trying to pour into a small opening - it goeth not on ye paint job.

Anyway, bleeding the master cylinder goes like a charm. Lots of air was in there, judging by the amount of fluid needed to add to the reservoir.. Maybe adding that should have waited till after he put the cup seal back in - spluort! spluort! - very good to have the pad in place to catch the splashing. This is where the training the weasels to herd the cats to get the elephants in place to wrangle the alligators comes in. With the cylinder properly bled, it has no "give". The linkage is about 1.001 RCH too "long" to go back on the pedal. Carlin the Wonder Midget, proceeds to half disassemble the surrounding area in order to get enough play in the clutch pedal to get it all back together. He then leaves it to me to "close up." Once back together - the battery is flat. Charge that, and it all runs, it goes into gear, happy, happy, joy, joy - I'll be able to go home and shower and put on clean clothes. But first, I must add the last quart and a half of tranny fluid. Wiggle, squirm, open fill plug, and drop the plug as ATF pours out. Good thing I have puppy pad down, yes? Finally get the plug, back in, and ask "Winning The Future?" Where are the bloody specs! Did I read "quarts" where it said "pints"? (Google may be your friend, but ... he can be a real wacko at times.) Book says 2.8 quarts - there is two tenths of a quart too much in there Well, draining that is simpler than trying to add the 1.6 quarts I thought still had to go in. Drain pan, dribble out the last of the excess, tighten plug up. Clean up and go home.

(Clean up involves two tables, a tent, ramps, chocks, and filling an already overflowing dumpster.)

Thing I wish I had had - The remote camera for looking inside of things, so that I could have seen where those c-clips were located/oriented. Not sure it would have made it possible for me to have gotten them out, but I would have know what I was looking for.

Things to keep around: "puppy pads".

Words to the wise. If the label on the [opened] brake fluid can is faded from the sun

- it is probably past it's"best used by" date. It maybe past its "Use only as fire starter" date as well.

Puppy Training Pads, are cool, usefully, and help with cleanup.

Zip ties or small bungies are really good for holding clutch pedals out of the way.

"Riding the clutch" - coasting up to a stop, or down small hills - is bad. Especially with hydraulic systems. Too much wear on the hydraulics, and may have contributed to the "premature" pilot bearing failure. Better to slap it into neutral.

When getting a "pop up" shade, make sure the legs go straight up, and not at an angle. Both styles are advertised as "10x10", but they are measured at the base of the legs.

CFLs are not as heat producing as incandescent, but are a pain to look at. Especially after dark.

Food good - low blood sugar leads to bad decision making.

That's 1/2 ounce ball peen hammer actually is useful for lightly tapping things.

"And that is how I completed a simple eight hour project in a mere four days."

Next time, I take it into a shop.

tschus pyotr

Reply to
pyotr filipivich
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Very interesting. I have found, in my 67+ years, that backyard or shadetree mechanic stuff always takes me longer than the flat rate manual says it will. And often involves removing things that aren't in the directions. Been there, done that. Maybe next time will be easier. I'm too cheap to let someone else do it, as long as I can still slide under the truck.

Glen

Reply to
Arthur Dent

"Arthur Dent" on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:38:26

-0700 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

"Next time" is always easier - you know where stuff is.

I'm with you there, about cheap. Even if my rich uncle gets out of the poor house and buys me the winning lottery ticket, I still don't want to do it B-). But shocks are on the list. Along with fixing the dent, the cracked windshield, the passenger seat (the lever broke off ...) and the driver seat (needs re padding.) changing out the dual overhand windshield washer knobs (the chrome plated ones are just too gaudy.), replacing the muffler bearings, and replacing the squirrel cage fan with a hamster.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

The way to fill this master cylinder enough so it can be bled in the normal fashion is to fill a pump oiler with brake fluid, hold the nozzle down into the inlet hole of the resevoir right thru the standing fluid, and slowly pump the oiler as a helper lets up on the clutch pedal. Keep repeating this until the clutch comes up and then bleed it in the normal fashion at the slave cylinder nipple.

Reply to
tomcas

tomcas on Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:30:13 -0400 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

Maybe is just me, but I am not seeing how forcing more fluid in the bottom of a cylinder will get the air out of the top. That is the "design feature" which makes you bang your head on the ground (after banging it under the dash board several times.)

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

It works because there is little space for air at the top when the helper fully depresses the pedal, at least enough reduction in air space for the procedure to work.

Reply to
tomcas

Hmmm, sounds good. Next time (hah!) I'll bring it over and you can show me. B-)

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

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