Bleeding the clutch slave cylinder

[yetanotherjohn]

I have a service manual on my 2000 manual trans Insight but I'm not sure how to get to the bleed valve on the clutch slave cylinder. I gather it's somewhere under the plastic engine cover. Has anyone changed the hydraulic fluid in the clutch system? Any quick suggestions for getting to that bleed valve?

Are the manual warnings about over-torqueing the bleeder valve as dire as they sound? The specified 5 lb-ft seems rather a lot for such a little bleed valve. I rarely tighten my brake bleeder valves that much on any of my cars.

John Siple, Seattle

[Insightful Trekker]

If you have the factory service manual then the exploded diagram on pg. 13-3 should be all you need. Pgs. 13-6,7 describe the slave cylinders replacement (with pics).

HTH!

[yetanotherjohn]

Thanks, John. It was buried down there pretty well but easy to deal with once I traced the clutch line. I hesitate to take much of this car apart unless I know it will be useful. Now the little Zipper has all new clutch fluid in its happy cylinders.