DIY - Swap clutch slave cylinder and hydraulic line for improved feel and control

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by inferno56kb

Like just regular 10mm hole diameter flat copper gaskets? I thought the difference between those and the crush washers was that the crush washers are kinda conical around the hole and thus stop liquids better? If a regular 10mm flat copper gasket fits as well i can get those easily enough

Yup. You can see them in my pictures. I cheated when I shot them. That's also why you see the "wrong." slave cylinder if you look closely at the angle of the banjo fitting. I'm still using it.


Absolutely my pleasure! Ask away about any of this stuff.

[inferno56kb]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Yup. You can see them in my pictures. I cheated when I shot them. That's also why you see the "wrong." slave cylinder if you look closely at the angle of the banjo fitting. I'm still using it.


Absolutely my pleasure! Ask away about any of this stuff.

Sooooo probably (hopefully ^^) the last questions i'll have about this mod before doing it sorry in advance for asking stuff that should probably be obvious, but I really want to make sure i'm making no mistakes.

First, I looked up the greases and these are what's available here, maybe you know one of these and can tell me if they work or not.

https://www.amazon.de/Liqui-Moly-340...thiumfett&th=1

https://www.amazon.de/Comma-GR2500G-...ds=lithiumfett

Second, what exactly do I have to grease?

I've seen this diagramm, so I'm guessing that's number 1? Can / Should I skip this if I'm uncertain about the grease?:



As for number 2, you also said something about greasing the slave cylinder. Am I right in assuming that this is where i should grease it?



As a side note for anyone getting the gaskets in Europe, Subaru doesn't try to rip you off on those, they cost 0.30€ a piece so you can get them instead of the regular copper gaskets with the Subaru number from the OP.

[Ultramaroon]

Whoops, @inferno56kb looks like I can't quote you because my Firefox browser + unicode characters = fail.

1. I will try to find more information on those products tonight after work but realistically, this is an academic exercise. If your clutch is creaking, the main pivot is already bone dry. Anything is better than nothing. When I say anything, I literally mean shoving a wad of grease in there with your finger and getting what little bit you can to work its way into the socket. Proper service involves removing the transmission. (or engine)

2. Remove the boot to inspect the other end of the pin. If it is lubricated, just reassemble. If not, lube the inside. You can wait to lube the other end. Clean the old grease off of the socket at the top of the fork and just dab a little bit in there.

No apologies! Glad to help!

[inferno56kb]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Whoops, @inferno56kb looks like I can't quote you because my Firefox browser + unicode characters = fail.

1. I will try to find more information on those products tonight after work but realistically, this is an academic exercise. If your clutch is creaking, the main pivot is already bone dry. Anything is better than nothing. When I say anything, I literally mean shoving a wad of grease in there with your finger and getting what little bit you can to work its way into the socket. Proper service involves removing the transmission. (or engine)

2. Remove the boot to inspect the other end of the pin. If it is lubricated, just reassemble. If not, lube the inside. You can wait to lube the other end. Clean the old grease off of the socket at the top of the fork and just dab a little bit in there.

No apologies! Glad to help!

Hahaha no worries ^^

1. Thanks, it would make me a bit braver That's the thing that is making me hesitant though, I have no squeaking or anything yet, so my thought process was in case this grease is worse it could do some damage. The only thing I hear from the clutch at all is if the car is turned off and I push in the pedal and release it it makes a "thunk" kinda heavy sounding, but not loud enough to be able to capture it on my phone and it seems to be coming from under the car, as in if i open the door and lean out of the car i hear it louder than on the inside. Some other thread about something clutch related (pedal adjustment, spring removal maybe) said it's normal so I have been ignoring it so far hoping that it's not the ToB. I have only around 25.000km on the clock, but if the grease works I'll try to grease it in any case.

2. Thanks! Now i know exactly what to grease on that thing.

[inferno56kb]

Alright. So I've done the swap yesterday and since then I've driven the car about 300km.

Long story short, a lot of the awkwardness of the clutch is gone. It's not perfect, but I don't think anyone should expect that anyway.

Absolutely worth the 60€ it cost me all together and it took me about 20 minutes to do with little mechanical experience.

As for background, I've been driving my car for the better part of a year now with the spring removed and pedal adjusted, but the slave cylinder had a much bigger impact. Driving feels more natural I noticed being less conscious about low speed shifts than I have been before and I personally didn't really notice a big increase in pedal stiffness, yeah it's a bit heavier but it's still a lot lighter than most sports cars I've driven in the past years so I will definitely keep the spring uninstalled. I probably won't be going back to the OEM slave even if I upgrade the clutch when going FI that's how little the weight increased imho.

Thanks @Ultramaroon for the DIY and special thanks for answering all my noob questions!

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by inferno56kb

Thanks @Ultramaroon for the DIY and special thanks for answering all my noob questions!

Thanks for the feedback. Your experience falls right in line with mine and many others'. IMHO, as I've stated many times, they really missed the boat and for some strange reason, have stuck with it.

Happy shifting!

[keithr]

@Ultramaroon

It is done. <cue dramatic music>

Today I finally got around to digging into addressing the squeaky clutch issue (as best I could). That involved removing the slave because that was the best way to access the fork. Sooo... since i was going to have it out anyway, I just swapped it.

I'm kinda crossing the streams here between that thread and this one, but the two are pretty closely related.

A couple things I noticed:

- The grease, if that's what it was, between the slave pin and the upper fork socket was somewhere between nonexistent and a dried up crusty mess of crud. It was just caked on grime in there.

- My new Duralast slave did not come assembled. I took the stock one apart and there was no lubrication at all inside the boot where the inside of the pin seats, however I added a fair dab of grease into the new one, because why not.

- The fork dust boot was half off before I even touched it. I suspect this might be part of the problem of everyone's drying out prematurely. My buddy's 2017 is starting to squeak and it's only a few months old.

- 13 ft. lbs is very little torque and my torque wrench almost burned me. You'd think I've have learned my lesson when I snapped a couple banjo bolts on my Jackson supercharger.

- When you spill brake fluid down into your engine, it really ruins your day.

Taking everything apart was pretty quick and simple. Once I saw how bad the [non] grease situation was where the pin hits the fork socket I got to cleaning that out... it took some doing, but a handful of surgical Q-tips with wooden sticks (much more sturdy) soaked in brake cleaner finally got the inside of that socket cleaned out.

I needed a dentist mirror to see down into where the fork pivot is, and again, it was pretty dry save for some caked on black crud buildup. Since my hands wouldn't fit down there, again with the surgical Q-tips soaked in brake cleaner, in I went with the mirror to try and clean as much of that old gunk off as I could. I got it as clean as I could, and then I attempted to glob some new grease in there but was not having any luck. I got the missus to come out, and while she was a bit miffed that her manicure was at stake, I got her to get her hand down there and glob some grease onto that pivot as best as possible. It was not an impressive outcome, neither tidy nor clean application, but I think we got an adequate amount where it needed to be. Of course, we got a bunch where it didn't need to be, but hey, small victories.

By the way, I actually came across the Lucas Red N Tacky #2 in a tub at a Advance Auto Parts when I was picking up some degreaser. I don't usually frequent Advance but they seem to be the only ones that had that grease in a tub vs. the grease gun tubes. Anyway.

When I put it all back together I put a good dab of grease into the pin socket, I cleaned the dust boot and fully installed it (time will tell if it stays put since I found it half detached), and then put the new slave cylinder on. That was the easy part. I had run a piece of clear line off the bleeder because I wanted to fully bleed/flush new fluid into the system so I had it going into a catch bottle. Everything was going fine with the wife in the car working the pedal until the clear tube popped off the bleeder and fell down into the engine, spilling the tube's contents of brake fluid all down and around the engine and surrounding parts. After 40 minutes of trying to clean up that mess, it is what it is. I'll probably go after the whole engine bay in the next day or two with some degreaser and all purpose cleaner.

Observations: Wow, the clutch is quite a bit stiffer. I wasn't expecting that much of a difference. After I take a couple commutes through stop and go (mostly stop) traffic, I'll see how I'm feeling about it.

The grab point feels higher, near the top of the pedal travel. After much trial and error I have had my pedal just above the brake pedal, I found this to be the best spot for me (and I have no assist spring). While the grab point is more distinct, it feels high to me. I know this is a self adjusting clutch so I'm sure it will be fine... it was hard to tell on my test drive but I'm pretty sure I was smelling all the crap I spilled into the engine burning and not burning clutch. I also got under the dash and made sure that the rod was fully seating against the clip when the pedal returns.

So far the squeaks are also gone, we will see how long that grease glob lasts. I'm hoping I got enough of it in the important parts, but considering there was little to none in there to begin with, I figure anything I got in there is better than what it had.

Thanks again for all your hard work and your insight to try the different slave cylinder. It's a pretty significant difference.

[ApexEight]

I too have greased the slave cup and pivot cup after noticing an intermittent light squeak and a slight crunch in the pedal. I too struggled with getting grease accurately onto the pivot (I used a plastic syringe). Anyway, it made the clutch pedal smooth as butter, though I feel like this is more a result of cleaning the crud off the upper fork and also applying grease. I haven't had the squeak return, but it is not as smooth as it was during the first week after applying the grease. I plan on trying this again. I would love to drop the transmission and completely clean and regrese everything (my pivot was also pretty dirty) but that's just too much right now.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by keithr

@Ultramaroon

It is done. <cue dramatic music>

Excellent. Yes, 17% difference in pedal weight is noticeable. I sound like a broken record but this thread has really grown.

Remember that we are reducing the mechanical advantage (aka lever arm). Imagine if the pedal was an inch shorter. Then the added force becomes intuitive. Changing the ratio between input and output cylinder diameters is effectively the same thing.

Another cool benefit, IMO, is that the flaw in the design of the TOB becomes more apparent when it presents itself. You will feel it more when the TOB binds against the quill so, potentially, you can catch it sooner. I can feel mine and am paying close attention.

Your observation about the height of full engagement is valid. Shortening the whole arc of engagement doesn't help with that weird feeling.

[funwheeldrive]

Just to confirm before I try, there is no way to grease the affected area without removing the cylinder right? It's not something I could just reach down into without removing stuff first?

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by funwheeldrive

Just to confirm before I try, there is no way to grease the affected area without removing the cylinder right? It's not something I could just reach down into without removing stuff first?

I haven't tried. You might be able to just pull up the fork boot and get behind it.

[keithr]

Originally Posted by ApexEight

I too have greased the slave cup and pivot cup after noticing an intermittent light squeak and a slight crunch in the pedal. I too struggled with getting grease accurately onto the pivot (I used a plastic syringe).

Hmmmm... plastic syringe. Now that’s a good idea. I don’t think I have any that would have a large enough passage for grease. What did you use?

Originally Posted by ApexEight

I plan on trying this again. I would love to drop the transmission and completely clean and regrese everything (my pivot was also pretty dirty) but that's just too much right now.

Yeah, it sucks that we even have to deal with this issue. I’m past my warranty now, but even when I was under factory warranty the local dealers always wanted to slam me for having a modified vehicle with all their “well if we take it apart and find out it’s not warrantee-able you’ll be responsible for the cost of disassembly and repair” garbage. And they treat you like a complete idiot with their justifications of how a little more engine power can somehow magically make the clutch pivot dry out. Scam artists.

I would have felt a lot better about schlopping a gob of grease down in there if I’d have been able to get it in between the fork and the pivot ball, where it actually makes contact. Of course without disassembling everything the best I could do was smoosh it all around and hope it works itself into the contact point.

[ApexEight]

Originally Posted by funwheeldrive

Just to confirm before I try, there is no way to grease the affected area without removing the cylinder right? It's not something I could just reach down into without removing stuff first?

If you're referring to the cup in which the pivot sits, then no, you cannot get to that exact area without disassembling everything. Best you can do is grease around it and hope it works its way in there.
@Ultramaroon is the quill the shaft that the TOB actually slides on? Is this area supposed to be greased?

In this image (https://www.google.com/search?q=tran...kyGcutZbcgnrM:), should the shaft be greased?

Originally Posted by keithr

Hmmmm... plastic syringe. Now that’s a good idea. I don’t think I have any that would have a large enough passage for grease. What did you use?





Yeah, it sucks that we even have to deal with this issue. I’m past my warranty now, but even when I was under factory warranty the local dealers always wanted to slam me for having a modified vehicle with all their “well if we take it apart and find out it’s not warrantee-able you’ll be responsible for the cost of disassembly and repair” garbage. And they treat you like a complete idiot with their justifications of how a little more engine power can somehow magically make the clutch pivot dry out. Scam artists.

I would have felt a lot better about schlopping a gob of grease down in there if I’d have been able to get it in between the fork and the pivot ball, where it actually makes contact. Of course without disassembling everything the best I could do was smoosh it all around and hope it works itself into the contact point.

Same exact situation. I was hoping I could move the fork to open up the area between the pivot and cup, but no luck.

Here is what I used: http://www.mwdental.com/media/catalo...760-0300_2.jpg

You can cut the tip to make the opening larger so that the grease will flow. Just take out the plunger and dump some grease inside, and then push the grease down.

I used Honda UREA grease. Pricey for the amount you get, but it's purpose is to lubricate fork pivot cups and I'm sure Honda lubricants are long-lasting.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by ApexEight

If you're referring to the cup in which the pivot sits, then no, you cannot get to that exact area without disassembling everything. Best you can do is grease around it and hope it works its way in there.
@Ultramaroon is the quill the shaft that the TOB actually slides on? Is this area supposed to be greased?

In this image (https://www.google.com/search?q=tran...kyGcutZbcgnrM:), should the shaft be greased?

Yup. Actually, in that image search, among all the aluminum ones, you'll see TOB kits where stainless or other tougher sleeves are made to fit over the gouged original.

It's supposed to be greased but the oem grease, in addition to hardening and separating, captures dust from the clutch disc and makes a nice gritty mess for the plastic bushing on the TOB. :/

I'm thinking of some sort of solution like those kits being sold. I took pictures of my spare worn parts and posted them in some other thread here.