Clutch pedal wont return after master and slave replacement

Hi everyone.

Just replaced the clutch hydraulics on my factory built LHD 200tdi D90 but i cant seem to get the pedal to spring back to its rest position without physically lifting the pedal up by hand. The master and slave cylinders have been replaced along with all three pipes that go between the two cylinders and I think I have the pedal adjusted properly, with a little bit of play to prevent the plunger from resting on the piston when its at rest.

Ive bled the system with a simple gravity bleed but as soon as I discovered this problem I got the easibleed out and tried it with that. Still the problem is the same.

Does anyone have any ideas how to cure this issue?

It can be when new master was fitted it was dry and piston is reluctant to return, usually cured by working it some provided fluid has gone through to the slave.
Why were you changing them? was problem already there ?
It can be the flexi pipe has deteriorated inside and is slowing flow, or bits of pipe have found their way into the small channels in master.

Thank you for that. I haven’t actually driven the car yet, but perhaps it will “bed in” as you describe.

Reason the parts were renewed was that the rubber hose had deteriorated to the point that it was losing fluid and by the time I’d removed that hose I just decided to replace everything on that circuit. They other components weren’t known to be failing but it just made sense to me to replace them all while I was there being as they all looked to be of a similar vintage to the rubber hose that I had to change.

Watch this video

In case it's still got air in it I'll mention that because the slave is horizontal I always found it easier to bleed with the car pointing uphill.

Bits of that hose could well have moved before you changed it and be blocking something.

Slave bleed nipple on the top?

lynall said:

Slave bleed nipple on the top?

Click to expand...

My previous SIII came with that little teaser.

Slave nipple is on top, thank you for pointing that out. Thanks also for pointing out that Brittania video. Not sure who that man is, but hes very informative and entertaining while he's at it. What more can you ask for from a youtuber?

Ill try again tomorrow with the nose pointing up hill and ill check the system over again. I did reassemble the pedal box and master assembly as per the video but no success in bleeding it through. I will go through the slave assembly tomorrow.

Leave all the pipe work connected & remove the slave from bell housing. Open nipple & push the slave piston all the way back. That’s normally what’re the air is
Hold the piston back & then re bleed

have you put return spring back on pedal

Thank you to everyone. Hopefully I’ve learnt something this weekend.
Hicaphills trick has cured it. Boguings suggestion may well have worked also. Helper spring was fitted at the point of reassembly, but I suspect that would benefit from being replaced.