Clutch Help

I have a 97 XJ sport. For the last few months It has been difficult to shift into first gear after coming to a stop in neutral. If I let the clutch out while in neutral and then depressed it again I wouldn't be able to get it back into gear. Then last week there was once when I pushed the clutch in and it would not disengage at all. I pumped the pedal and it got better. I bled it last night and It seems a little better. Through all of this there hasn't been a noticeable loss of fluid. My guess is that either the slave or master cylinder may be going bad. The clutch doesn't slip at all under normal conditions and when I bled it last night there was a fair amount of pressure when the pedal was depressed. How do you know which one it is? Can they be rebuilt? I may try to change the fluid and re-bleed the system. I have a hand held vacuum pump to bleed it with but do you remove the bleed screw and then replace it quick after bleeding the system?


Thanks for any help.
Mike

Do you have a functioning bleeder on your slave cylinder? My 95 does not; although there is a tapped hole, it is not drilled through.

If you do have a functioning bleeder, then you can just hook the vacuum pump to it (with a bleeder jar made for the purpose, not directly through to the pump), open the bleeder and pump. When enough fluid has come through to satisfy you that it's bled, and not enough to run the master reservoir dry, shut the bleeder screw.

As I understand it, though, the reason there is no bleeder is that the system is designed so that the slave cylinder displaces slightly more than the total volume of the connecting line. So theoretically you can bleed the system simply by unhooking the slave cylinder from the clutch, pushing the rod in all the way, and slowly releasing it. This should do the job.

I'm guessing that if there is no leakage but the system responds to pumping up, the master cylinder will turn out to be bad. When a master cylinder wears out and its cups leak, it simply bypasses fluid back into the reservoir. If a slave leaks, it leaks it out.

A slave will leak when it fails, just like Mr. Currie said, the master will just stop working. I would do the master 1st....its alot easier.

Rev

Matthew Currie said:

Do you have a functioning bleeder on your slave cylinder? My 95 does not; although there is a tapped hole, it is not drilled through.

Click to expand...

No XJ's that came equipped with external slave are self bleeding. AFAIK if you try using the little thing that looks like a bleeder valve you will break the setup.

just fixed this on my rig a while ago thanks to the unlimited knowledge of 5-90, our friendly neiborhood guru on everything xj. take out your clutch cylinder. If it is broken replace, re bleed and your don. Its a simple bolt on. To test just hold your finger over the line fitting and pull the plunger back(simulating your clutch) it should hold pressure.
cheers
(by the way this is my first time giving back to naxja- how did i do you salty bastards?)

It is doing much better since I bled it. The real problem is that I am leaving town and leaving the XJ with my wife to drive. So I am sure that something will explode when I am 50 miles from town. And you may be thinking why is this moron leaving the jeep with the wife? I am traveling with a 12 year old girls soccer team and the forcast is for 100 degrees 100% humidity and the XJ air will be my next project when I get back. IT has some issues, but from what I can tell most of them from that year do. Thanks for the help.

Mike