280zx81

Hi
I have a 81 280 ZX and last night when I went to go out for a drive the clutch was dry. I filled it and bleed it at the transmission but it still will not fully engage. Is there any tricks to bleeding it?

Bleach

...well, did you keep bleeding it a while to be sure there are no air bubbles? Not to say you dont' know how to bleed it but you do have to bleed out more than just a little fluid.

Besides that, there are no tricks. If the clutch worked before, then your clutch pedal is already adjusted properly. (or good enough)

280zx81

yes we got all the air bubbles out but someone said that i should crack the line loose coming from the cylinder since the line goes up a bit from there. could that be an issue?

Bleach

There is no need to disconnect the soft line. If you bled it, just bleed it again. Maybe gravity bleed all the fluid through it again now. Have someone down below the car watching the action on the cylinder after all the bleeding is done. If it moves but your clutch has problems... well, maybe your throwout bearing blew up. You would hear that though when trying to shift

jfairladyz

Just a thought but if the reservoir was dry then there is a chance that something is leaking and so no matter how much you bleed it, it's not going to work right. A leaking master cylinder will not show itself easily unless you get up under the dash and check it out.

280zx81

The wierd part about it though is it was working fine up till last night then i went to start it pushed in the clutch and it just hit the floor and stuck so i filled it and got all the air out well thought i did and its half engaging but won't fully kick in now

jfairladyz

A seal might have just let go. It's just odd for a master cylinder to not have any fluid in it. Of course if you haven't been checking it then it could've been really low for a while. Then as soon as it hit that point where the fluid gets down below the master cylinder it just starts sucking in air.

But if you cant get it to work properly after bleeding it again then I'd say it's time to start replacing things.

280zx81

I left the bleeder cracked for a couple hours then it worked alright not like it did before but i think I may have a small leak I will have to see once I get the car home but its quite difficult right now since I live on residence for university so I have a real lack of tools or anything here.