GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

Important tip if you bleed your clutch

vwengineer

Ready to race!
Location
Switzerland
Hello,

Not really a tutorial but something is never thought about when bleeding my clutch and that I wish I had a read. So here is the story: I bought my car used with almost 190'000 miles. When I bought it the clutch was working good but sometimes pedal would not come back fully (would still engage the clutch). The previous owner told me that the slave cylinder along with the clutch had been replaced like 20'000 miles ago and that since then the car had this "problem". He also said that his mechanic bled the clutch three times without success.

At this point I thought that it was a bad master cylinder, so before buying a new one I bled once again the circuit. After the bleed, the clutch was working good but then the problem came back. So I ordered a new master cylinder (from China, genuine VW according to the seller) and replaced it, bled and went for a ride. It was working good but after 10-15 miles the problem came back! So I bled and rebled and rebled the following weeks, nothing worked.

I went to the conclusion that either the slave cylinder was bad or that air was indeed trapped in the slave but never surfaced. As I was not wanting to open the gearbox I decided to live with it and did it for 3000 miles. Then one day, I wanted to shift in second but no, I could not get out of first, out of surprise I slammed it into second and realized that it was probably the clutch not fully releasing. Next red light, same problem, except this time I despressed and re-pressed the clutch and it worked.

I had to get this problem solved, so I looked at various videos to see if there was a trick to bleed correctly the slave cylinder. At which point I finally stumbled upon a video where the guy was recommending getting the master cylinder out and move it up and down when doing the bleed.

Then I understood, the place where I work on the car is almost level but the car is still somewhat tilted on the front. So I took my jack, put the front on stands and bled again. As soon as I opened the bleed screw, a giant bubble came out. It was stuck in the master cylinder all the time because it was a bit tilted forward.

So next time you bleed put the car either absolutely level or bleed once with the front down and once with the front up, lesson learned :)
 

gti2slow

Go Kart Champion
Location
NH
I used a motive power bleeder when I did my clutch and brakes, made the job super simple.
 

vwengineer

Ready to race!
Location
Switzerland
I used a motive power bleeder when I did my clutch and brakes, made the job super simple.
I also did but it seems that a small air bubble can stay trapped inside the system if the car isn't level even when using a pressure bleeder. Probably that you can just change the fluid with the car not being level and not have issues, but if you have air in the system then you need to put it level to get rid of it completely.
 
Last edited:
Top