Gremlins in the Hydraulic Clutch

[Theshandman]

Big mystery- well, for me anyway... I have a BPE 347, Tremec TKX with a hydro clutch. Wildwood pedal box. 3200 miles. Every so often the clutch loses authority; the pedal goes to the floor. A few pumps, sometimes only one and the pedal is back to full authority with maybe 1/2" play before pedal pressure (like it should). The res is mounted just about at the same horizontal level as the MC. (Is gravity at play?) I never lose any fluid (all hose seals are tight) and the res is always right where I last checked it, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 full but a bleed process will show moderate amount of air. I should add that in chasing this problem I rebuilt the clutch MC with Wildwood parts and things seemed ok... for a while. Anyone have a sense of what's going on?

[Mike.Bray]

I would have a close look at that Wilwood MC, lots of failures with them. I replaced all of mine with Tiltons.

[Daddy O]

Hey there, I have the same engine trans and hyd clutch setup from BPE. I too had intermittent clutch issues with pedal engagement height changing over time. Turned out to be the bleeder line and the McLeod not so great bleed screw. I chucked their bleed screw and used one of these https://www.summitracing.com/parts/RUS-641380. Pressure bled the clutch and no issues since. I also changed out the AN braided bleed hose for a new one since I had gotten fed up with the bleed screw and over tightened it damaging the hose fitting. Yes, the bleed hose can be changed out without pulling trans, it has a fitting that screws on throwout bearing. Good luck!

[Daddy O]

One more thing, I noticed the provided McCleod bleed screw was 45 degree while the bleed hose is AN 37 degree. Not sure how they figure thats going to be reliable.

[Mike.Bray]

Never had any luck with McLeod stuff especially their HTB.