Help, Clutch has no pressure

[nowwhatnapster]

Hadn't driven my integra for a few days during the brutal cold this last week. Got in and my clutch had no pressure.

I had this happen once before, a friend told me to try pumping it if its hydraulic you might get pressure back and it worked. I was able to drive it to a shop to get fixed.

This time its not working, I get back some pressure, but not enough. So I'm a little at loss what to do.

I would assume check the transmission fluid, but I cant seem to locate where to check, it. I'm assuming its under the car somewhere.

I would appreciate it if someone could help me out. So I can atleast drive it to a shop to get worked on


***Update***

Did some googling, I'm guessing I have air in the clutch lines, people talk about bleeding the lines, etc, that might be a little difficult for me. unless someone can provide me with a tutorial.

 

[Spody02]

i'm guessing since this happened before you have a leak in one of your cylinders, either the master or the slave but i would check to see how much clutch fuild you have in there, if its low, then bleed the clutch, if isnt low, i would bleed the clutch anyway

 

[jdmjim]

yea its like bleeding brakes. have someone pump the clutch up while u open the bleeder on the slave cyl.

 

[sciullo779]

you can put brake fluid in the reservoir, and just pump it and youll get pressure back, unless my leak was like huge lol otherwise bleed it, theres a bleeder valve/bolt on the slave itself left of the header looking down at the motor

 

[nowwhatnapster]

Yea thanks for your help guys, It dawned upon me I had a friend I haven't talked to in awhile that knows a good amount about cars and he helped me figure out that was my problem. I didnt know the clutch used brake fluid. Anyways..

My resevoir was low, below MIN line. Filled it up to MAX and pumped a little, but no luck. Guess I have to bleed it. I'm hoping that it just ran low, because I never check that resevoir. I got stuck in some brutal snow storm traffic for 4 hours the week before and my car got pretty damn warm while inching up steep hills. I wouldn't be surprised if that heat managed to boil off some water in the fluid.

I found this page with someone bleeding the clutch. Going to follow the instructions on there. Let me know if the page is incorrect in any way. Thanks.

http://www.team-integra.net/sections/articles/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=644

 

[tkvang]

Nah, that's it. Very simple job to do.

 

[ManDown]

If your clutch ran low on fluid then you probably have a leak somewhere. My 94 LS would run low every 6 months or so and I would have to put more fluid back in. I could tell when it was getting low by the feel of the clutch. Turns out it was the master cylinder that was leaking. Take a look on the inside down by your clutch pedal. You should see it where the pedal connect to your master cylinder. If it looks wet or if you have a stain on the carpet time to replace.

 

[dc2b18]

make sure that you check the master and slave cylinders for leaks... that would be a simple fix to keep you from having to add fluid all the time.

 

[sciullo779]

If your clutch ran low on fluid then you probably have a leak somewhere. My 94 LS would run low every 6 months or so and I would have to put more fluid back in. I could tell when it was getting low by the feel of the clutch. Turns out it was the master cylinder that was leaking. Take a look on the inside down by your clutch pedal. You should see it where the pedal connect to your master cylinder. If it looks wet or if you have a stain on the carpet time to replace.

damnit the piston from the pedal to the cylinder on mine is wet never thought of that, but the carpet isnt wet.....

 

[nowwhatnapster]

Did some google and understand how the clutch works.

I dont see any fluid on the master or slave cyclinder as you suggested I look at. Guessing I dont have a major leak. Probobly has slowly been leaking for months. Car has 160k miles and last time this happened it was around 140k i think

So I'm guessing there is just air stuck in the line and I will have to bleed the system out to remove it. And pumping the clutch is just moving the air back and forth.

I wont be able to bleed this till the weekend, any idea how quickly that reservoir of fluid will go down when you pump the clutch to bleed it? Is it like 1 or 2 pumps before you need to fill it up again?

 

[nowwhatnapster]

Got a helper finally. Started bleeding out the clutch line. Was fairly easy.

After bleeding out about a cup of brake fluid. i stopped and told my helper to pump the clutch to see how it felt.

He couldn't depress it more than an inch lol. I got a little worried, I waited about 5 minutes while doing some fruitless googling and it felt like my good old clutch again.

So its working and I got to take my car out for a spin after being dormant for over a week.

Thanks again everyone for all your help. I wouldn't have had the balls to try doing this without confirmation. Maybe one day I'll be as good with cars as I am computers.