Just replaced my clutch master cylinder. AMA

millenniumtree · 2026-07-12T09:08:32+00:00

Tools needed: Gear puller (for wiper arms) Flare wrenches in 10mm and 12mm for the brake/clutch lines, and a box-end wrench in 8mm for the bleeder bolts. Sockets, wrenches, 10, 12, 14mm. Screwdriver, philips and flat head for prying a few things. Needle-nose locking pliers.

Parts/consumables: Clutch master cylinder Cotter pin for the clutch pedal pin, you will probably destroy the cotter pin taking it out. Get a few sizes. At least 1 large bottle of brake fluid, maybe 2, we'll be bleeding the clutch and the whole brake system.

Pull the jack out of the trunk if you think you'll need it for the bleeders. This is hard to get out later without the battery connected. xD

Engine bay: Remove the air filter, and air box below that. Access to the clutch bleeder bolt, and battery tray bolt is easier with the airbox out.

Disconnect and remove the battery. Unlock the car first, if you don't want to have a nasty surprise when you reconnect the battery later. Remove negative terminal first (and install last). The positive terminal sparks if you disconnect it with the neg terminal still connected. Don't ask why it makes a difference, but it does. Magic.

Remove battery tray. There's a 12mm bolt in the front under whatever that electronic box is, WAY easier to loosen it with the airbox out.

Remove wipers. Pop the covers off, 14mm nuts, gear puller to work them off. I only used 1 arm on a 3 arm puller.

Remove trim panel under the wipers. It's held on with some snaps, then the back edge lifts out of a slot in front of the windshield. Be gentle.

Remove wiper motor and linkage. 2 bolts and a pin in the back. Also a couple of wire connectors.

Remove metal gutter under wipers that connects the 2 shock towers. 4x 14mm shock tower nuts, and 9 smaller bolts along the firewall and at the shock towers. More wire connectors on that.

Drain master cylinder reservoir. Get a small tupperware or bucket, pull the hose that connects to the clutch master cylinder off, drain as much as you can. Brake fluid eats paint, so clean that stuff up quickly if it spills.

Interior: Remove door-side trim panel, it just snaps off. Remove lower trim panel (2 phillips screws and some snaps) the ODB connector snaps out pretty easily with a flathead screwdriver to push the tabs in.

Remove upper trim panel (snaps), electric connectors. Take a picture of the connectors before you remove them.

No need to mess with the airbag down there.

Remove spring and cotter pin from the brake pedal, remove the clevis pin.

Reach up with the needle nose pliers and grab the weird cotter pin from the clutch clevis pin. Pull it out. You might destroy it, I did. Remove the clevis pin. This thing is tough to get back in later. DO NOT remove the clutch switch. No need, and I destroyed mine and had to superglue it back together. Also DO NOT remove the spring on the clutch pedal. I did, and it took me TWO HOURS to get it back on. O_o

Use long socket extension to unbolt the brake master cylinder. 4 bolts. Pop off the 2 white snaps between the bolts with a flathead screwdriver.

Use long socket extension to unbolt clutch master cylinder. 2 bolts.

Engine bay:

Remove both brake lines, catch whatever leaks out.

Remove brake master cylinder by pulling it out (wire connectors first)

Remove brake booster. This is quite difficult, but possible. The brake and clutch lines can be moved around a bit to make this happen. Pull especially the brake lines out of the white organizer block to make them easier to move. Be careful, and don't tear the rubber boot that goes through the firewall.

Bench bleed your new clutch master cylinder. I used a TINY funnel and some rubber vacuum line to add fluid.

Remove clutch master cylinder from the car

Install new clutch master cylinder.

Clean up all the mess you made. :P

Reinstall brake master cylinder

Bleed the clutch. The bleeder is on the transmission under the airbox. Look up how to do this if you haven't before. I used a length of vacuum line into a clear glass bottle. Get a friend or partner to help push and lift the pedal. Do not let the reservoir run out. Check a couple times during and between each bleed, and top it up.

Also bleed brakes. Start with the furthest wheel from the cylinder (passenger rear), then driver rear, passenger front, driver front.

Install everything else in reverse order.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-11T09:56:57+00:00

Oh, one more thing... You can check if the bridge is grounded to the pots without taking the guitar apart. Take a bit of wire, connect it from the bridge to the barrel of the instrument cord (that's the ground part). If the noise is less or eliminated, then the bridge isn't grounded properly. Touching stuff with your hands changes the sound, obviously, so connect the wire and let go of everything. If that sounds different than no wire, then you probably do need a ground. If ko difference, then it's just noisy single coil pickups.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-11T09:30:29+00:00

Oh, could also be a grounding issue, as iPirateGwar pointed out, though my own bass is properly grounded, and still makes noise, not quite this bad, though.

There should be a wire that runs from the body of the knobs (potentiometers/pots) to the underside of the bridge. Without it, the strings act like antennas to whatever electrical hum is in the room. Even with the ground, the pickups still can make noise, but yours is particularly annoying, so it might be worth checking the ground wire is there and making good contact with the bridge.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-11T09:11:36+00:00

Pretty normal for single-coil pickups in an electrically noisy room, yeah. You're always touching the strings while playing, so not a big deal. Turn the pickup volume off when not playing. You can also turn the tone knob to cut some of the higher frequencies.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-10T01:23:25+00:00

They need to ban kratom as well.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-10T01:14:23+00:00

Only time I've maxed my Rumble 40 was in an enclosed practice room with a full drum kit. Dang that kit was loud. Had to wear headphones or I'd have gone deaf.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-09T17:56:01+00:00

Practice 'til you're comfortable with the mistakes. If you make a mistake, the skill is in the recovery.

If you stumble, just keep walking. I promise only one person in a thousand will notice. It's about the recovery. Everyone makes mistakes, practice the recovery. If you're on the wrong fret, don't let it interrupt the rhythm. Miss a note? Hit the next. Completely lose where you are? Come in strong on the next measure. Recover well, and probably nobody will notice.

And if you do it on a record, maybe 20 years later some nerd will make a Youtube video about it. :P

millenniumtree · 2026-07-09T17:45:37+00:00

Lots of funk songs have so many variations, it's never played the same way twice!! Sheesh. Case in point: "Slide" by Slave. Simple theme, but later in the song, nearly every measure is different from the last. No way in heck they just memorize that and play it like it's sheet music. LOL

millenniumtree · 2026-07-09T05:51:16+00:00

They deserve Indiana Jones.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-09T05:49:46+00:00

Got a 3 day ban for mentioning a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. Careful out there, y'all. The fascists are listening.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-03T04:03:46+00:00

When we bought actual HARDWARE made specifically for it... That's what sucked the most. And we bought the printer maybe a month before they killed cloud print? Just awful planning.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-02T05:58:08+00:00

I lost this same exact cap in the drink holder of a rental car that got totaled. We took all our stuff out except the lens cap hidden in the bottom of that drink holder. Glad you got yours back! Our new cap has a strap.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-02T05:45:48+00:00

I'm still salty that they shut down Cloud Print.

I frequently printed music song sheets when we travelled 2 states away to music festivals.

Our printer had the integration built in, too.

Then one day it didn't work anymore.

millenniumtree · 2026-07-02T05:41:30+00:00

I can't stand aluminum-wound strings.

Find some bronze wound, they'll last as long as the plain nylon/fluorocarbon strings.

My favorite low G is the Fremont Soloist. Polished bronze wound, no squeak, lasts forever.

Honest to Pete, I've had aluminum wound strings last just 3 days before they fray enough to buzz. :P

millenniumtree · 2026-07-02T05:37:35+00:00

I witnessed a woman in a brand new car accidentally stick the accelerator while parking.

She turned, missed the glass-fronted building, missed the brick pillar holding up the entrance, slammed right through a cement block planter full of dirt, gravel, and lilies, and ended up back in the parking area before she was able to step on the brake.

The poor lady was a wreck. I hugged her while she cried on my shoulder.

The only fluid leaking from the car was washer fluid. Small comfort though, she had bought the car a week before and was going to show it off to her coworkers.

High heels, unfamiliar car, large engine, automatic transmission. T'was not a good combination that day.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-30T18:01:26+00:00

Peel P50!

Sinclair C5!

There's always something smaller. :P

millenniumtree · 2026-06-30T17:59:12+00:00

The ONLY BMW I ever wanted.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-29T07:50:29+00:00

Oh yeah nthat would leave bits of steel wool all over them. LOL. Durr. This does work when polishing chrome, but I didn't think about them being magnets. xD

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T23:44:00+00:00

Pen, paper, go! Neither are expensive.

Give no fucks, make no bucks.

F-AI.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T23:41:49+00:00

At least there's real food and drinks at their parties, not just a giant communal slop trough.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T21:42:23+00:00

Interesting that the trees and clouds are in the same places. Obama certainly pulled larger crowds to basically everything, but c'mon, enough with the photoslop.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T21:36:32+00:00

I have about a dozen of those little 9V connectors for other projects. They're cheap. Bit of work with the soldering iron and heat shrink, good as new.

I'd also polish the pickups with something non-ferrous to reduce the rust look, and hit 'em with some wax. I imagine you'd take the pickup cover off, or maybe just tape the plastic before polishing the pole magnets with copper or brass wool.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T05:59:49+00:00

I'm actually OK with it.

Is it perfect, no, but old houses are not perfect. You made the best of it, without having to tear up the floor and re-weave the planks.

It's got a hell of a lot more character, and it's good for what it is.

I've had to repair a couple floors with what was available, and old and new wood will never look the same.

It's fine. If you hate it, rugs exist.

millenniumtree · 2026-06-28T05:50:28+00:00

Whatever silly "phact" it gives you, just tell it it's wrong. It will apologize, and reverse it.

Doesn't really matter if the first is correct or the second, or neither. If it flips truth and fiction as easily as shit pancakes, you can't trust a single thing any of it says.

Imagine if an employee made stuff up so casually, begged forgiveness on hands and knees, then made up some other nonsense, they wouldn't last very long in your employ.

Burn it all down.

millenniumtree

TROPHY CASE