Troubles with bleeding the clutch

I bled my entire brake system with a mityvac on my 1998 5th gen and thought I had it down great. I got to bleeding the clutch and somehow can't get it to engage fully after flushing out the system. If the bike is off and I pull the lever fully I can barely move the tire. (feels like the brake is sticking) however if its in neutral it moves fine. When I start the bike and pull the lever while in gear the tire stops spinning. It appears to work as normal unless the bike is off.

I'm thinking this is because the piston isn't pushing the rod all the way in, I tried several solutions.

1. Bleed with the mityvac several times, almost using a whole 32oz bottle of fluid. the fluid coming out is clear with No bubbles.
2. Removing the slave cylinder and compressing it and releasing the bleeder screw, letting the fluid out and then tightning the screw and letting the piston move back out a little.
3. Removing the master cylinder off the handlebar and raising it up to remove air from the banjo bolt.
4. Pulling the lever all the way and loosening the banjo bolt on the m/c. Then tightening it and releasing the lever.

It seems to work enough when the bike is running.. however I am almost certain the pistion isn't pushing the rod far enough in to disengage the clutch fully.. I'm lost.

The fluid that first came out looked like milk, it was bad. the bike has around 26,000 miles on it and I believe this is the first time it has been flushed.

Right now the bike is sitting with the m/c opened up and a zip tie holding the lever in all the way overnight. I will find out in the morning if this worked to release any leftover air.

Any ideas?

 

Was the engine cold when you tried this? The clutch plates are more than likely just sticking together because of the cold oil. If your tire stops spinning when the clutch is engaged it's fine.

you could get it up to temp and try again and see.

 

I always bleed the old fashioned way as I have never heard of a mityvac. Squeeze lever, open bleed screw, close bleed screw, let off lever. Repeat till fluid comes out clear without contaminants or air. The way I understand hydraulic systems is that they are open only with the lever out, not pulled.

The good news is that with all that flushing you probably have a pretty clean brake lines.

 

agree with above ^^^^^^ kinda fail safe...

 

the old school method is pretty failproof. however I like the mityvac because it REALLY speeds the procedure up. and simplifies it. a lot.

 

I love when people tell me how much better it is to do the clutch the old fashioned way. I made my own bleeder with a mini wet dry vac and pickle jar and it works a treat! It literally takes 45 seconds to do my clutch now. It's all about convenience.

Rollin

 

Rollin, Never used a mityvac so can't offer any A-B comparison, just know that a 8mm wrench is all that is really required. Many times I'll will drain the master cylinder and use cotton swabs to carefully clean out the sludge I think it helps with fluid longevity. I generally don't disassemble the system unless there is a leak.

I buy used bikes and it must an infrequent service item. As you mentioned service involves some mess unless you use a tube and container and is not well understood as to how the hydraulic system works. On my 86 the rear brake was dragging, just needed fresh fluid so all three system got bled.

 

After much pain an suffering with bleeding anything on my 98 I broke down and purchased the 8 speed bleeders necessary to preform this task but one thing I learned the hard way that may help you is that you have to try and turn then bleeder screw and much to the right as possible, almost to the point where it is hard to pull the lever, I did it this way and almost three years later my clutch lever still feels great and I only have to pull it about an inch to change gears. What I do is just keep my 8mm closed end wrench in an optimum position so I can tighten then screw ever so slightly and it seems to work and I hope it works with your OEM bleeder screws too. If you need a great source for speed bleeders go to Wire My Bike, Josh is a great guy and I have bought many things from him related to 5th Gen VFR's

 

i have an issue with my clutch too.
bled the system.
have pressure at the top banjo joint.
have all fluid at the bleeder valve.
no leak in hose.
rebuilt master.
rebuild slave.

have no pressure build up to push in the clutch rod.

any ideas?

 

I don't know why, but the clutch line seems to be the worst for trapping air; you almost certainly still have air in the system, unless you put the slave back on but didn't tighten the bolts that hold it to the case.

A vacuum bleeder, and some thread tape around the bleed valve, takes some of the pain out of it.

My only other suggestion is when you manually bleed, pull the lever in, hold it, and crack the nipple, then close the nipple, and release the lever.

 

it might help to have the slave cyl c-clamped fully retracted so it doesnt move when squeezing clutch lever.

it might.