Birty Dastards Jeep Club

Tech Forum => Workshop => Topic started by: georgen on June 18, 2014, 08:35:48 PM

Title: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: georgen on June 18, 2014, 08:35:48 PM
Is the hydraulic clutch on the 97 tj 4.0L a sealed unit so unable to drop fluid and refill, theres what looks like a grub screw in slave where you would expect a nipple, my clutch is biting rather low, about 10mm off floor and wondered if fluid was goosed, last time I was out playing so it was used a lot more than normal the bite dropped even lower and was finding gears notchy before returning to its normal 10mm the next day.
Any Ideas or experience with this?
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: isle of man on June 18, 2014, 08:39:33 PM
Think you will find a knack to this, GOOGLE will bring a plethora to the mind.
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: georgen on June 19, 2014, 04:58:42 PM
Think you will find a knack to this, GOOGLE will bring a plethora to the mind.

I have Google the shit out of it, that's why I am asking here LOL, some say yes, some say no, some say complete system, others say parts, and people who tried bleeding through grub screw strip it, now are these  who over tighten shit or if its not designed for this does it just happen. So since no one defining answer came back I thought someone on here might of had some experience on here.
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: Jonny Jeep on June 19, 2014, 08:50:31 PM
Did mine once when I found fluid was low. The grub screw closes the path to a pin hole somewhere on the body of the cylinder from which the fluid will jet out at high speed when the grub screw is released/pedal depressed. WEAR EYE PROTECTION if you do it. Turns out I had a leaky slave so I replaced it all with a new sealed system from Jeep. That was in the days before I knew of birtys/lighthouse/rockauto etc. I believe you can get slave and masters seperately from the likes of RA rather than a whole sealed unit.

What is the fluid level like? if it's low you probably have a leak. Master I think leaks into the foot well, slave into the bell housing. The OEM system does not have exposure to air as there is a rubber seal under the cap. The only thing that would really affect the fluid condition is heat as far as I can see.
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: georgen on June 19, 2014, 10:20:49 PM
Did mine once when I found fluid was low. The grub screw closes the path to a pin hole somewhere on the body of the cylinder from which the fluid will jet out at high speed when the grub screw is released/pedal depressed. WEAR EYE PROTECTION if you do it. Turns out I had a leaky slave so I replaced it all with a new sealed system from Jeep. That was in the days before I knew of birtys/lighthouse/rockauto etc. I believe you can get slave and masters seperately from the likes of RA rather than a whole sealed unit.

What is the fluid level like? if it's low you probably have a leak. Master I think leaks into the foot well, slave into the bell housing. The OEM system does not have exposure to air as there is a rubber seal under the cap. The only thing that would really affect the fluid condition is heat as far as I can see.

Cheers for that, it just I have no idea how old the fluid is but i do know it stood for 2 years without being used and only covered 30000 miles in the 9 years leading up to it coming off the road so was thinking of fluid change, the level was not full but also not empty
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: bonza on June 20, 2014, 08:16:45 AM
master and slave can be purchased seperately from RA and morris4x4 unlike from Chrysler which only lists a part number for a combined assembly.

bleeding is a pain in the arse, but best not to use the little bleed screw on the slave.

if you want to just change the fluid depress the clutch and use a syringe and extract fluid from the master while holding the clutch in and re-top up with fresh brake fluid while still holding the clutch in. re-top up and depress the clutch a few times to cycle the old fluid trapped in the slave into the master, and repeat process of extracting fluid with a syringe a few times until all pretty much done. doing it this way saves the problems of having to bleed

but, if you need to bleed simply top up master and pump clutch a few times. bubbles will appear in the master every time the clutch is depressed, top up fluid as you go, or else if gets too low, air will be sucked back in the slave when the clutch is retracted. usually takes about 20 pumps of the clutch to fully bleed.

its amazing what fresh brake fluid will do to improve brake and clutch performance if it hasnt been replaced in years
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: Bubba on June 20, 2014, 11:57:17 AM
last time i had this problem to bleed i took the slave out and pumped that it worked as a reverse bleed and the air went up the system was fairly quick too
Title: Re: 97 TJ clutch enquiry
Post by: georgen on June 20, 2014, 05:32:26 PM
Cheers lads, will look tomorrow whilst messing around with the other things I have to do.