Clutch Master and Slave Replacement

["Damian Magista" <magista@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just got done replacing the clutch master and slave on my Berlina. For
a while the clutch slave has been slowly failing and two weeks ago it
went out. This is what was happening when I left my airbox in the
Safeway parking lot ("Dude, where's my airbox!?"). 
 
Essentially a seal in the slave let go. What was happening was that
during stop and go driving the clutch would get softer and softer and
finally cease to disengage. If you let the car sit a while it would be
fine again (because this system tends to bleed itself to a certain
extent). If you drove it, the problem would begin to occur. 
 
I ordered a master, slave and hose from Centerline (who were very very
nice and had it to me in two days). I put the car on ramps and began
removing the old components (first time I've done this operation).
Removing the slave was cake, removing the master was a PITA as you need
micro-midget hands to get the two allen head bolts off. Somehow I
managed to do it (my hands sport wounds from the battle). 
 
The second hardest part was removing the fluid resevoir. It seemed to
have been cranked down by a Sasquatch. I tried getting it off with a
combo wrench but it would not budge. Afraid of damaging the bottle
and/or nut, my pops came up with a different approach (my hats off to
the older devious crowd). We took it too the basement grabbed the
grinder and very very carefully cut into the master where the threads of
bottle are. We made three cuts then grabbed a hammer and blunt chisel,
gave a whack or two and bingo, it was loose. I checked the threads,
cleaned them up a bit and called it good. It wasn't a very elegant
solution but it worked. 
 
Installing the slave was relatively easy once we got the clutch
disengage lever pulled back. I installed the new hose then went up top
to wrastle with the master. In the process I lost one allen bolt (grrrr)
and scraped my knuckles numerous times. I eventually found the missing
bolt and of course the it was the bottom one which is virtually
impossible to get to. I couldn't get my hand close enough to the bolt
hole to insert the bolt. To solve this I grabbed the correct sized allen
key and used some electrical tape to tape the allen bolt to the allen
key. Now I had enough reach and leverage to get it in the hole. This
also allowed me to tighten it down without too much hassle as well. 
 
After everything was installed, we bled the system. It took forever and
I had fluid all over me. After about an hour and a half we called it a
day. We could only get a small amount of movement out of the slave.
Everything was tight and we had been getting a steady stream. I called
Mr. Moll for some advice. He told me that often times if you just pump
the clutch and let it sit and repeat that will bleed that system. He
also stated that when I went back and hit the clutch that it may work
because of the self bleeding nature of the system. Indeed, the next day
I went back and bingo, it worked just fine. 
 
So there you go, my big master and slave adventure.
 
Now go out and drive your Alfas! 

Damian


In hot and sunny Seattle
berlina/berlina
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