::Project 0G::

Wilwood Slave Cylinder

This little component can save hours of frustration and fabrication when converting a cable actuated transmission for use with a hydraulic clutch pedal. The part is available through companies like Summit. Technical info can be found on the Wilwood site.

First, you will need to mount the cylinder to the drivetrain. The most convienient spot for this is on the two "rear" motor mounts that are on the block. It is important to prevent the threaded ends from binding. This will cause the seals to be stressed resulting in a failure of the unit. A simple trick for this is to counter sink both sides of the mounting bracket with a large drill bit. This results in a 45 degree angle on both sides. (It will never need that much movement but its good to know its there!) The Wilwood cylinder comes with an aluminum bushing that helps it to float around freely.

You will also need to modify the arm that pushes the throw-out-bearing. This is done for two reasons. First, the arm sits close to the bellhousing. This means that between it and your bracket sits the bellhousing. Instead of having our slave cylinder at a strange angle, you might as well move it out. The second reason to modify the bracket is to add a mounting position for the end of the cylinder.

For the hydraulic lines you can buy fancy -AN fittings that in hard to find metic sizes. Or you can make an adapter from the metric to -AN fittings. Buy a $2 short brake line, cut off one end, slide on a metric flare fitting (possibly from your ABS removal). Double flare the cut end and there you go. A $2 adapter... no -AN fittings or braided hoses.

Bleeding the system is very straight forward. Be sure to ADJUST everything possible. This includes both threaded ends, the mounting position on the arm (higher=harder pedal,more travel; lower=stock pedal, less travel) as well as the threaded ends of the master cylinder. The system can be adjusted to the point that it is indistinquishable from a stock clutch pedal.

Note: This is one of the few parts of using the D50 transmission that makes me not want to use this transmission the second time around. It is very difficult to adjust and work on. It is squeezed between the motor mounts and the steering gearbox as well as all of the other stuff located in that VERY busy corner of the engine bay. sure it works, but its alot of trouble to put the weakest of the transmission choices for a swap.


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