Slave cylinder - Update

[John Berger]

I was under my truck last night to adjust the shock settings back to un-towing mode when I noticed that the new slave cylinder didn't look like it was mounted flush against the clutch housing. There was a small piece of plastic wedged between the plastic cylinder face and the housing. I loosened the bolts and sure enough a piece of plastic fell out. I decided to take the entire thing out and what do you know, there is another piece of plastic wedged into the area around the fork and pressure plate, but unfortunately it dropped into the clutch housing. I looked at the rod on the old cylinder and there is just the plastic cap on the end and two tips where it looks like a long strip of plastic was cut off. One of them was missing on the new cylinder and the other was intact. The one that is missing is on the bottom of the clutch housing, the other I cut off. After re-installing and driving, the clutch feels much better and goes into first gear more smoothly than yesterday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The service manual illustrations show no such plastic fingers running the length of the slave cylinder rod. Can anybody shed some light on this. I'll be calling that dealer this morning to tell him about this little problem. They did a good job of getting me in and out and their courtesy was outstanding, but I do reckon that his mech got in a bit to much of a hurry.

 

[nps]

John,



The master/slave is a sealed unit from the factory. The straps you are talking about go over the nose of the slave cyl pin - I guess as a way of keeping it from coming out and overextending until you have clutch fork resistance against it. The strap breaks the first time the clutch is depressed.



I assume this is an insurance against trashing the unit because of an inadvertent bump on the master rod while it is being installed, since there is no 'official' way to bleed the system if the slave piston pops out.



Don't think they should cause you any trouble.

 

[John Berger]

That's kind of what I figured. The gap between the cylinder face and the housing was between a 16th and an 8th of an inch, I would have to guess. That much of a gap could cause a problem in shifting, I'm thinking. (Hoping )

 

[MikeR]

Those little straps are only there to hold the rod and piston in place during shipping and installation to keep the rod and piston from blowing out. They are suppose to be cut off during final installation.



-Mike