Slave cylinder not returning "home"

[93MikeB]

Truck has been making a god awful high pitched squeal from what seems to be the throwout bearing. Crawled under it tonight and manually pushed the slave cylinder and figured out that it was not returning "home" completely. There is also a little bit of play in the pedal (pedal not returning all the way up as well). Wore out slave? Possible air in the system? Are these even able to be bled? Thanks in advance

[bmoeller]

Yep. Could be some air in the system. Never bled one before, someone else will have to help there.

[93MikeB]

Pulled the slave off the bellhousing to try and bleed. Fluid started running out from the dust boot... crap! Looks like it's time for new hydraulics

[Tacoclaw]

My slave cylinder has a spring behind the piston, it'll only return back as far as the clutch pushes back. As far as I can tell our throwouts are always in contact with the PP. I'd check and make sure the spring didn't just push the piston out the end of the thing.

Also, bleeding them is a complete bitch. I had to take mine off, hold it so the line was pointing up, then shoved it all the way in by hand. It puked bubbles everywhere out of the reservoir. Then just let it out slowly and do it again. Took me about 7 cycles to get it done.

[PToombs]

There is a bleeder on them, but most people do what Taco did.
Sounds like the throwout bearing is toast too now.

[dunes450r]

i don't like that the spring in the hydraulics puts constant pressure on the throwout bearing, but oh well. i'm not sure if my hydraulics are bled completely or not, the way i judge it is; if you have enough pressure to disengage the clutch, then its bled well enough for me

[Rusnak12]

also make sure your master cyl. isn't failing. happened to me when I replaced my flywheel and cluth/pp throwout bearing. bought a new slave put it together and only got 1/2 of full slave travel and partial release. when I checked my master there was fluid pushing past the piston and therefore reducing the output.