Hard to change gear / Bleed nipple removal worked!

[James D]

Dear all,

Needed to bleed clutch slave cylinder as gears were slowly but surely becoming harder to select. Further inspection of hydraulic line to slave cylinder showed a tiny leak on an inline joint. I knew due to time having van that the leak took weeks to affect gear change so wanted to quickly bleed slave cylinder to get me going. But the bleed nipple was heavily corroded and wouldn't come out.

After watching this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJ4IQVritU&sns=em" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I tried it out - I only had one of those light duty plumbing gas torches but it worked a treat. Think the wet rag makes the nipple contract very quickly and break the corrosion that's seizing it in. A small pair of mole grips were also used to get a good bite as the spanner flats were rounded. I've replaced the old nipple with a new one. Still need to fix the inline joint on hydraulic line though, at least bleeding will be easier now. To bleed we used a one man bleed kit but I still wanted to watch fluid come through so my son operated the clutch pedal. Really happy with the job overall.

Cheers,

James