Slave Cylinder Installation Issue and Fix

[Eggbert]

This may or not be "off-topic". Depends on your set-up. On my Cobra the slave cylinder is external and this post doesn't apply. It's really something I figured out for my P-car, but whether it applies to you or not, you may find it interesting.

I had some trouble installing the slave cylinder in my transmission. The book it says to disconnect the hydraulic line and then you can either remove the slave cylinder or leave it in. Thinking I was a bit more clever than that, I decided to leave the hydraulics connected and remove the slave cylinder. This would avoid a mess and later bleeding the system. In hindsight this may have been a mistake. Removing it took more effort than I anticipated and putting it back turned out to be impossible until I figured out an idea. As I've ed seen many posts about S-C installation difficulties, I thought I'd post.

I never thought to take pictures so most of the ones in this post I found on the net.

First of all, here's a pic of a typical Boxster transmission with slave cylinder installed, probably a 5-speed. Under the car the Slave is almost out of sight.



However I encountered another problem. My 6-speed has some shift linkage in the way that covers access to the S-C bolt.



So I had to remove the linkage. The book shows the use of a puller, but even a small one won't fit there. The nut retains this bit of linkage on a tapered shaft and I found out prying with a flat bladed screwdriver, from a few different angles popped it off.

Now to re-install it. What happened is the S-C push-rod fully extended due to its internal spring.



Doing so drew hydraulic fluid from the reservoir and through the Master Cylinder vent hole, which is open when the pedal is not depressed..



Trying to force the S-C push-rod back into the cylinder was too hard, partly because of the awkward access reaching over one's head, but mostly to do with trying to force that fluid back through the small M-C vent hole and into the reservoir.

First I needed to compress the push-rod back into the cylinder.



For this, I used a small bar clamp.



Since there is a bit of rubber hose between the two cylinders, I clamped it off using long nose vice-grips with rubber hose insulators over the jaws (there is a proper tool for this but I don't have one).



I then remove the bar clamp and the push rod only came back out a very small amount due to vacuum. Now it was easy to install the S-C other than getting the S-C bolt to find the hole in the transmission case.

Once in, I removed the vice grips and it was done. In the end I'm not sure how I'd do it next time. I am pleased I avoided the mess and bleeding procedure. Thought I'd share.