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Installed the SS Hydraulic line today. Didnt work. There is a leak all under the slave cylinder. I'm so tired of this BS. Buying a 2nd new slave tommorow. GOodnight.
Edit: I guess I should expand even though I'm so frustrated, I've built more pressure than ever with the hydraulic hose but as soon as I build pressure and then press the clutch all the way down for longer than 2 seconds, all the pressure goes away leaving me back where I started. Theres a fat puddle of brake fluid under the slave cylinder, and yes! I do close the bleeder valve everytime I start pumping again......
Update: Got the new Slave Cylinder, same problem. Same ******* problem. So I'll be taking apart the master inspecting to make sure all my connections are sealed. FInd out if the rubber hose is not seated properly, etc.
Took the Master out, inspected for leaks, crossed threads. Nothing. So, I decided to bleed it outside of the car. Turns out the gold colored adaptor that threads into the hydraulic line and master cylinder is not air tight and is leaking air when enough pressure is built with the clutch fully engaged. So now I need to find a better fitting and I have no idea as to what that would be. If anybody knows the optimal adapter, please let me know.
Took the Master out, inspected for leaks, crossed threads. Nothing. So, I decided to bleed it outside of the car. Turns out the gold colored adaptor that threads into the hydraulic line and master cylinder is not air tight and is leaking air when enough pressure is built with the clutch fully engaged. So now I need to find a better fitting and I have no idea as to what that would be. If anybody knows the optimal adapter, please let me know.
Big NO NO NO!! No brass fitting in this place used. I can see damaged black fitting by improper tools. Use flare wrench. Get fitting from dealership.
Last edited by Colin42; Aug 10, 2020 at 04:30 PM.
Reason: removed email
Today, I'll be attempting 2 different tasks. I'll be going to Napa to see if I can order an appropriate fitting for the SS hydro line.
As well, I will be going to O'reillys and renting out a flare tool and line bender and some brake line. If worse comes to worse, I will be dismantling part of the old hardline and making a new one as I cannot get the hardline to hydraulic line connection to stop leaking.
Whats up bois, its been awhile. Here is the crazy part, still working on the clutch but I know a lot more than ever before. I ended up buying a SS hydro line. Instead of wasting time flaring lines after trying to attempt a double flare nearly 40 times I did a single flare and it didnt work.
SO! Long story short, threw out using a hardline completely. Got a different SS hydro cable because the one I got was not air tight. Got proper adapters for this shiz show. That included a 3AN to 12mmx1.0 male to screw into the clutch master cylinder.
Secondly, I'd hold the clutch down when I built adequate pressure because that would force pressure out of any fitting that was not air tight. After doing this, I haven't had losses in clutch pressure...yet....unfortunately my car has been dead for so long that my battery is beyond dead...gotta love the process.
Yo @Perfectionist , did you ever find a solution? I have a 2005 Civic and I've been battling this stuck to the floor clutch pedal for a few weeks now and damn, reading your journey in this thread is certainly making me feel not alone lol
Yo @Perfectionist , did you ever find a solution? I have a 2005 Civic and I've been battling this stuck to the floor clutch pedal for a few weeks now and damn, reading your journey in this thread is certainly making me feel not alone lol
Ya, its a shiz show for sure. It was harder for me to bleed this clutch then it was to disassemble its transmission. After hours and hours of frustration, what i can tell you is there are several connection points. If there is any amount of leakage on any of these contact ends, your clutch will end up dropping.
What I ended up doing is completely bypassing the stock line and putting in a SS Hydraulic hose. Sure, its not stock but after hours upon hours, i didnt freakin care anymore, i just needed a car to drive. Once I bypassed Honda's ridiculously sized line and put in my Hydro cable, it took maybe 5-10 minutes to get it bled and I've been driving it ever since. WORD OF ADVICE! If you do go this route, make sure both fittings on the hose fit your car, do not waste hours looking for adapters to attach because unless they are blessed by the Heavens they will find a way to leak. I made this mistake and I lose some pressure because it slightly leaks but I just top it off the reservoir and i'm good. I'll invest another 60$ for a different hose with zero added adaptors when I'm ready to be miserable again. Good luck. @devinkkperry
Ya, its a shiz show for sure. It was harder for me to bleed this clutch then it was to disassemble its transmission. After hours and hours of frustration, what i can tell you is there are several connection points. If there is any amount of leakage on any of these contact ends, your clutch will end up dropping.
What I ended up doing is completely bypassing the stock line and putting in a SS Hydraulic hose. Sure, its not stock but after hours upon hours, i didnt freakin care anymore, i just needed a car to drive. Once I bypassed Honda's ridiculously sized line and put in my Hydro cable, it took maybe 5-10 minutes to get it bled and I've been driving it ever since. WORD OF ADVICE! If you do go this route, make sure both fittings on the hose fit your car, do not waste hours looking for adapters to attach because unless they are blessed by the Heavens they will find a way to leak. I made this mistake and I lose some pressure because it slightly leaks but I just top it off the reservoir and i'm good. I'll invest another 60$ for a different hose with zero added adaptors when I'm ready to be miserable again. Good luck. @devinkkperry
Lol yeah I was inspecting the line for leaks and thought it was pretty ridiculous how it goes all over the place and has like 5 connections between the slave and master...that's just asking for a leak. Hmmm noted, I very well may just head over to hondapartsnow and order an entire new genuine line to be on the safe side.
I actually picked up a vacuum pump from AutoZone and when I vacuum bled it (probably about 10 reservoir refills worth of bleeding), I noticed I had stiffness in the clutch pedal for just a moment as I began to push it toward the floor, but then it felt as if the hydraulic pressure was immediately lost and the pedal was stuck to the floor again. I could have sworn I read somewhere that you had the same experience when you vacuum bled it.
Ya, i tried the same thing, same outcome. It may build up some pressure but once you force pressure down, it will find any leak in your line and shoot out the pressure you just spent 1 hour building up. If it takes an absurd amount of time, something is most likely leaking. You could try replacing the rubber line ( I think they are like 15-20$ at autozone) but if a flared end on the hardline isn't air tight or too tight, you might want to double check them for damage.
Vacuum pump or not. If I had more money, I'd just do what your doing. Order an entire new OEM line but they are expensive and will be a pain in the a$$ to install. Dont even get me started on trying to take the slave cylinder apart for the first time trying to connect the clutch line. Yikes. But it is doable, its just not fun...ever. @devinkkperry
I have a 2002 Civic EX 5 speed. Gears were starting to get difficult to change, peeked at the slave and it was wet, decided to replace slave and master together. Little cursing here and there while trying to get that master out behind the strut tower (PIA location) anyways. Clutch sinks to the floor like normal when you open the system. Put the two parts on, sealed the system put fluid in the reservoir, vacuum bleed the system, finally got fluid coming out, checked for leaks and saw none was present. Kept vacuum bleeding the system and about 2 reservoirs full I am still getting air, and the clutch pedal has not changed, still sinks to the floor as if its not connected. Double checked everything and nothing seems to be leaking or disconnected. Am I doing something wrong here? Clutch has absolutely no resistance what so ever. I'm pretty sure fluid is going through the master and to the slave because I am getting fluid. But the clutch pedal never changed, I don't think its possible to have that much air in the system is it? I have also tried pumping the pedal with the system sealed (cap on res also) almost 200 times and no difference in the pedal. And I did NOT bench bleed. Any help would be appreciated.
Best of luck! Hopefully you got this solved. Those lines hold. So. Much. Air.
I tried hand pumping and another person pumping the pedal without success. I wound up using a Power Bleeder with the euro attachment. One person held it on to the reservoir to keep the pressure even, the other pumped it to 12 psi and opened the bleeder.
Since I use old threads regularly to figure out how to fix things, hopefully this thread necro is forgivable and useful.
Best of luck! Hopefully you got this solved. Those lines hold. So. Much. Air.
I tried hand pumping and another person pumping the pedal without success. I wound up using a Power Bleeder with the euro attachment. One person held it on to the reservoir to keep the pressure even, the other pumped it to 12 psi and opened the bleeder.
Since I use old threads regularly to figure out how to fix things, hopefully this thread necro is forgivable and useful.
I just read this via my email. It shot up a little amount of PTSD trying to fix the unfixable. My clutch still doesn't work 100% to this day, but it works. I ended up getting an aftermarket clutch cable and completely bypassed the OEM line. Its worked for awhile now.
I just read this via my email. It shot up a little amount of PTSD trying to fix the unfixable. My clutch still doesn't work 100% to this day, but it works. I ended up getting an aftermarket clutch cable and completely bypassed the OEM line. Its worked for awhile now.
Lol yup, I woke up to an email notification for this thread and got a little PTSD too. The most traumatic repair I’ve done on my Civic, hands down. Thankfully my clutch works beautifully now, hope you get yours back to 100% one day
Guess I'll necro bump this post about my experience with this damn 7th gen clutch line lol.
Family has two of these damn Civics, an 02 and an 04 with the horribly designed clutch lines and tight access into the master, the job just sucks to do. The 04 Civic I was able to successfully bleed it after a friend who used to be a tech at Honda recommended I use the Harbor Freight pneumatic brake bleeder (https://www.harborfreight.com/brake-...der-92924.html). The trick he told me to bleed it was to start the pneumatic bleeder and then then crack open the slave cylinder's bleeder valve, then when you close the bleeder valve, keep the pneumatic bleeder running a little bit after the slave's bleeder valve is closed. It seems due to how the lines go all over the place, air is easily introduced into the system when the bleeder is cracked open and the pneumatic bleeder is not sucking air out. That was the original problem I had when I tried to bleed the clutch with the bleeder and lost pressure. Other Hondas I've had like my dad's 05 Accord and my 2000 Integra, did not have the same issue as the 7th gens did.
On my 02 Civic, I said screw it, and bought a stainless steel line to use instead and the job was much easier lol.
Our 05 gave us issues when bleeding. Our solution was to hook up a cheap vacuum bleeder (not a true vacuum pump...it uses air from a compressor in a bypass fashion) to the slave, crack it open, and watch the air be sucked right out. That vacuum bleeder took 1-2 minutes to complete the job we had been manually pumping for over an hour and used 1.5 cans of fluid. The bleeder we used can be found on Amazon - ARES 70923-1-Liter Vacuum Brake Fluid Bleeder.
Edit - it looks like the bleeder from Harbor Freight linked in the prior post is nearly the same as the one we got from Amazon. That one did the trick for us. Sry to hear it doesn't have the same magic for you.
Last edited by redlion4; Jul 22, 2022 at 12:35 PM.
Solved:
hose in bottle trick did it. Put a hose on bleeder on slave cylinder and get a water bottle put a hole big enough for hose and fill with brake fluid submerge hose in the brake fluid and pump clutch until no bubbles in bottle.
PSA: remember don't let reservoir run dry.
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re: Hard time bleeding clutch [solved]
Originally Posted by loftinblood1989
Solved:
hose in bottle trick did it. Put a hose on bleeder on slave cylinder and get a water bottle put a hole big enough for hose and fill with brake fluid submerge hose in the brake fluid and pump clutch until no bubbles in bottle.
PSA: remember don't let reservoir run dry.
When I replaced clutch slave cylinder several years on my 5th gen I did the same method and it worked very well.
I'm reviving this old thread to share my experience with this. Hopefully it will help others.
I couldn't get the air out of my clutch line on my 2001 Civic, so I tried using:
1. Hand vacuum pump, and I never could get all of the air out.
2. Vacuum extractor (the kind you hook up to an air compressor) - no success again. Mind you, I tried the "slow and steady" method where the fluid moves slowly through the line. I tried that several times before switching to giving it higher amounts of pressure quickly to pull the air out. Still no success.
3. Then finally, the method that worked was unbolting the slave cylinder and lifting it up and resting it on top of the engine (without disconnecting any lines). You will need to remove the intake resonator, and unbolt the front bracket on the rubber hose portion of the clutch line. I tied the slave cylinder up to the cruise control line to hold it in place, and then put a catch can below it with a small bit of tubing attached to the bleeder valve so I could get a good view of the bubbles coming out. I opened the bleeder valve and then pushed the piston of the slave cylinder all the way in, and then immediately closed the bleeder valve and then let the piston return to its extended position. I repeated this until I went through about 3 reservoir fill-ups of fluid (don't let the fluid in the reservoir get too low and suck in any air) and I wasn't getting any more bubbles. Reinstall the slave and then go check your pedal. For me, it was the best feeling in the world having pressure in my pedal again. Thanks to BrotatoChip on here, and a Youtuber (video below) that made a video using this technique.
TLDR; As others have said, skip the vacuum pumps and extractors and just bleed it with the slave cylinder raised up high.
I could have sworn I read somewhere that you had the same experience when you vacuum bled it. 
