Bleeding an Aprilia Clutch - a Dodgy 'how to' guide

[flange]

So I posted this on the Falco section of the Apriliaforum site but thought it might be useful for any Aprilia owners who are as rubbish with spanners as I am. Please note that I'm a total N00B when it comes to spanner stuff so some of it may be untrue/made up/utter shite

Anyhoo, the seal on the slave cylinder went on my Falco and I kept loosing clutch fluid which proved a) annoying and b)er, bloody annoying. So I bought a nice cheap slave cylinder off Eblag and fitted it at the weekend, emptying the system of fluid (a nice black colour) first, of course. Then I refitted with the new 'piston' and stuck it all back together.

THEN the party started....

First off I went for the cheeky reverse bleed. Whip the cap of the resevoir on the bars, fill your syringe up with lovely dot4 and pump away into the slave cylinder via the bleed nipple (how pr0n does that sound).

Result - 100% lever travel, 0% clutch action. Not good. So I swore a bit (a lot) and came back inside for a coffee and a browse of the interweb.

Second stage. Make sure the system is full of fluid (mine was thanks to the reverse bleed) and take the slave cylinder outta the housing (I'm dead technical me). At this point you get to see if the el cheapo seal you replaced is holding fluid as it should be as dry as Ghandi's flip flop in there. Take the cap off the res, turn the bars all the way to the right (to get the res at its highest point see) and pump the lever (the clutch side Forest) to get the piston nearly all the way out. Then push the piston back in (softly softly catchy monkey) using your fingers otherwise you damage the piston and it'll leak and...well....probably suicide will ensue. Get excited by the bubbles popping in the res as the air is forced out of the system and then pump the lever again to push the piston back out. Rinse and repeat. Check the res after each go to make sure there are no bubbles in the fluid. If there are, tap the side of the res to burst them (I recomend an 8mm spanner for this but you can use whatever you have laying about - steady though, dot4 burns.)

After about an hour of hot piston action I had a working clutch and two thumbs that resembled a BT020.

So thats it. Next job will be replacing the rear shock so expect more swearing and shouting via the medium of postage when that happens.

[fastdruid]

Fun when the seals start leaking isn't it?

Same goes for pretty much any hydraulic clutch, I remember having the same kind of fun with my VFR.

I've got a braided line to fit some time when I can face doing it again.

Druid

[RealityRSV]

i think the title 'bleedin aprilia clutches!' might be more appropriate lol

[MotoNik]

Another Falco rider, cool!

Nik

[lorenzo]

I can count myself lucky. I've got one of those mityvac thingys, I replaced the seals in my slave cylinder, attached the mityvac and 10 minutes later I was done, all bled up perfectly. Best £30 I've ever spent, you can hvae brakes and clutches bled up from scratch, as in new hoses etc, done in minutes, literally. If you've a bunch of mates who're into working on their bikes and cars etc, this is awesome, have a whip around, they'll love you for it.

[vtr-1000]

have to agree, can do all 4 lines on mine in less than a hour with said vac pump-great bit of kit!

[bigT]

http://www.apriliaforum.com/forums/showthr...clutch+bleeding there you go,

the way i did was the same i think without re reading the whole thing, simple terms here we go..... get a syringe, tubing,

suck existing fluid out of res, fill syringe with fresh, put onto nipple at slave end crack open nipple push fresh through,close, repeat and keep removing old stuff from res until nice new stuff comes through, there you have it reverse bleeding...... if you want to stop your nice new fluid going black in days, then remove slave cylinder, grease the seal with silicone grease, put it back together and bleed, this time though be more patient cause you've allowed air in to the system, it will work but takes more flushing....oh yeah give the banjo on the master a tap everynow and then bubbles tend to accumulate in there.