Un-reparable?

OK, this sucks. I just spent $640 on the convertion kit to make my '89XJ have an external slave. The instilation went smoothly, and I thought I had fixed my clutch problems forever! Boy was I wrong. I took it out to Clear Creek to get in a bit of weekend wheelin, and not even 100 yards into the dirt I loose all pressure on the pedal, compleate with smoke from under the hood. After it cooled down and the smoke cleared, I saw a huge (3cm) hole blown in the plastic line running from master to slave. Tried putting a 2" peice of hose over the ends of the line after cutting out the bad section, but even the hose clamps couldn't hold back the pressure. Not to mentioon that even if they could, there is no bleed screw on the friggin thing, just a threaded port that leads to nowhere.

I got it home ok, and upon visiting the stealership today, they have no friggin clue what I'm talking about with the one peice mc/sc unit. I think the parts guy there is clueless. So my question is do I have to spend another $145 just to fix this little hole? Can I just get a replacement line? And what happens if I were like 50 miles out? It seems that there is no way to splice and bleed the unit on the trail, and I'd have to wheel cluchless all the way out? Bad move on jeeps part methinks.

You are correct -- there is no place to splice this on the trail. Or at home, or in a shop.

It probably blew at the point where the plastic runs close to the exhaust manifold. Low speed apparently doesn't provide enough air movement to keep it cool, the plastic gets soft, and when you step on the clutch it can't hold the pressure.. Same thing happened to Mike from NJ at NAC-Fest two years ago.

I suggest you PM Mike, he may have part numbers for you. He went to a NAPA in town and found a length of steel brake line (and I think a couple of adapter fittings, here's where you'll need him) and replaced the plastic line with steel. Bleeding was a problem -- we never did get it bled properly at NAC-Fest and he drove it home without a clutch.

I am interested in the solution for this too.

I always thought that plastic line was a dumb (ok, it saves DC money, but from where I am, dumb) way to do that. I keep thinking there must be a seperate slave/master setup that can be used, and a braided stainless line, or something similar to fit.

MY 84 had an external slave with a bleeder(Ax5) I wonder if it's the same part, just without the plastic one piece line.

You can also replace the plastic line with a braided SS line from Advance Adapters. Here's a link to the catalog page:

http://www.advanceadapters.com/catalog/t28.html

Did this on mine when I swapped in an NV3550 and it works great. I did add a 90° fitting at the slave to put the line at a better angle. If the master or slave goes out, you can buy just that part instead of coughing up for the expensive master/line/slave combo from the dealer. Directions for bleeding can be found here:

http://www.quadratec.com/pdf/slave_cylinder.pdf

I followed these directions and had no problem bleeding mine.

A working fix is to take a piece of hard brake line and slide it into the plastic line. Then take two clamps on each side and clamp it. You have to make sure that they are the smaller clamps that are the right size as the big ones will loose circular shape as you clamp down. Anyways, I've seen it done on the trail and I believe the rig is still running this way (about 2 months now) but he will be replacing it with a more permanent fix soon. Btw this is a trail fix not a permanent solution.

The potential cause of this is heat related. The plastic line is on the exhaust side of the engine and when you're on the trail moving slowly there is very little air movement in the engine bay which probably resulted in your case in melting of the line. So another thing to consider is to shield the line from heat by wrapping it in something that will act as an insulator.

HTH

Isn't the bleader down at the bell housing end like on a yj?

weapon said:

Isn't the bleader down at the bell housing end like on a yj?

Click to expand...

The newer setups for the ax15 are self bleeding. There is something that looks like a bleeder but if you mess with it you will damage the setup.

xytrix01 said:

OK, this sucks. I just spent $640 on the convertion kit to make my '89XJ have an external slave. The instilation went smoothly, and I thought I had fixed my clutch problems forever! Boy was I wrong. I took it out to Clear Creek to get in a bit of weekend wheelin, and not even 100 yards into the dirt I loose all pressure on the pedal, compleate with smoke from under the hood. After it cooled down and the smoke cleared, I saw a huge (3cm) hole blown in the plastic line running from master to slave. Tried putting a 2" peice of hose over the ends of the line after cutting out the bad section, but even the hose clamps couldn't hold back the pressure. Not to mentioon that even if they could, there is no bleed screw on the friggin thing, just a threaded port that leads to nowhere.

I got it home ok, and upon visiting the stealership today, they have no friggin clue what I'm talking about with the one peice mc/sc unit. I think the parts guy there is clueless. So my question is do I have to spend another $145 just to fix this little hole? Can I just get a replacement line? And what happens if I were like 50 miles out? It seems that there is no way to splice and bleed the unit on the trail, and I'd have to wheel cluchless all the way out? Bad move on jeeps part methinks.

Click to expand...

Conversion kit? Could you give details? Didn't know a "Conversion Kit" existed other than swapping in newer Mopar parts.

I didn't realize that the pre '91's had plastic lines. My '89 had a metal line - or did the plastic line come with the conversion kit?

I did the external slave swap on my '93 using '99 TJ bellhousing, bearing retainer, fork and slave. I kept the '93 master cylinder........ and then realized that there was no way to connect the two using a factory line. I ended up using a brass ferrule fitting to connect the '93 XJ line to the '99 TJ line down near the slave cylinder.

You may be able to do something similar. Maybe buy some aluminum, copper or steel brake line, to run along the firewall, down past the exhaust and to a place near the slave. Then using brass connectors, splice it into the plastic line near the master cyl, and near the slave.

I guess it'd look something like this:

Master cyl<----short plastic line here------>brass ferrule end/ to /brass compression flare fitting<--------long metal line here ------>brass compression flare fitting/ to/ brass ferrule end <-------short plastic line here-------> slave cylinder

The ferrule ends are like the fittings that connect that brass or plastic water line to the back of your refrigerator, or the old-school oil pressure gauges - uses a brass barrel shapped fitting slid over the brass line, then is compressed when the cap is tightened over the threaded end. The compression flare fitting is like what most common brake line fittings use.

Make sense?

HTH, and please post what you ended up doing for a fix.
Troy

Well, I broke down and purchaced the fittings and hose from advnced addapters. I looked all over the place, and the only bulk line that anyone had that was capable of handling the presure involved is the braided stainless teflon hose. The problem is that it doesn't respond well to being hose clamped onto barbed fittings. The teflon makes it non-stick I guess. Aperently the only way to get a good connection out of the stuff is to have the fittings crimped onto the ends. After looking at the cost of finding fittings, buying the bulk line, and having someone crimp it, I just took the easy way out and bought the premade lines. Beware though, this is not a cheap fix! I spent $83 on a hose and two fittings!!!!!! It's ok though, I figure it won't break again!