Well, after 2.5 years, I brought my Old Blue back to life. Spent about $40 in new fasteners here, there & everywhere, new belts, new AGM battery, new sneakers, new WP rear shock, refreshed the forks, valve check, tune up, all new fuel & breather lines, air filter, fixed some small electrical issues, and replaced the stock cans with a pair of barely-used Cobra F1s ... wheeled her out of the dining room (which she has graced for the past two months) and barROOM fired right up! ah, such a sweet sound. Those F1s are a far cry from the "Silentiums" I took off, but it was so nice to hear her come back to life.

Put my gear on, wheeled her into the driveway for a victory lap around the neighborhood and ... my clutch is nowhere to be found. Calling the lever feel "spongy" would be exagerating - it would've been an improvement!

Bled the system, no better. Going to try one last time, only this time going to pull the handlebar off the bike so I can really get the resevoir higher than the banjo, but I have the feeling a rebuild/replacement is in the works. Of course, this is a fine excuse for a new S/S clutch line, too ...

SO close!

Is it leaking from clutch system, or only air? Have You checked if leak inside clutch cover?

Jake! Glad to hear you're so close!

Just a thought, on some bikes I've had to loosen the banjo bolt at the master cylinder, and then, while slowly squeezing the lever, loosen the banjo and then retighten.

Sometimes there is a bubble that just can't be bled thru the normal methods. Better master cyl's, like on KTM's, have a bleed nipple on the high point on the master cyl.

Holy cow!! Both of you guys are back and in the same post! Time to buy a lotto ticket

Vacuum bleed or force the fluid up from the bottom.

Hi Jon!

well, I've been in here from time to time, but haven't been posting. My Paso had been running great....

So now it's clear why I'm back again, eh?

Good suggestion on forcing fluid up from the bottom. I once heard about using a spray bottle pump. Take off the spray nozzle, fit a hose to it, and fill the bottle with brake fluid. Empty the master cyl reservoir, and fill it from the bleeder screw, upwards...

I never tried it, though.

I never had much luck with my MityVac.

Michael

The rather large syringes for injecting marinades in meat can be adapted for reverse bleeding. Bleeding from the bottom up is always the most effective way to bleed any hydralic system. On some systems it is the only way to go

Also check that the clutch is indeed releasing. The dry clutch can sometimes rust together and lock up the whole show. Put it in gear, pull in the clutch, and roll it back and forth to make sure it frees up. I had this problem with the ST from time to time if I come back from rain ride, and don't get back to it for a week or so. Once you get it broken free, it all works fine.

Cheers,

So I skipped the rebuild option and went straight for a new master & "while I was at it" a new S/S line, hoping the master was the issue - given its 2.5 years of inactivity and rather ratty-looking appearance. After 3 nights of horsing around and still not being able to build up enough pressure to actuate the clutch, I'm throwing in the towel and I'm going to drop it off tonight @ my favorite local shop and just have them bleed anything that needs bleeding, and call it a day. It's so close I can taste it, so instead of goofing around a couple hours a night (between work, kids, etc) I'm just going to throw money at it so I can start riding it.

I tried the vacuum bleed w/ the MightyVac too, and while I had decent results with it on the Monster, I'm unimpressed on the Paso so far. I did notice, using the 2-person method, that while I'm not getting any bubbles out of the bleeder, it looks like each pass has a bit of sediment coming out. So now I'm beginning to wonder about the state of affairs in the slave. We'll see what the shop says, I guess.

Hey Jake, you didn't ever have the clutch lever off, did you? Because there's this little tylenol-shaped metal pushrod in between the piston assembly and the lever on both the clutch and brake levers on the Paso. If you leave that out, your brakes and clutch will work, but only barely. And you'll spend hours and hours bleeding, and it won't get any better....

Ask me how I know!

I went thru this 20 years ago on my first Paso. My buddy borrowed my brake lever, and that little pill fell out. We didn't notice. And when he returned the lever the next day, I had no brakes.

And I'll give John at Microbore a little bit of credit, he's the mechanic who finally figured out there was a piece missing.

I've been looking for an online microfiche picture to post, but Ducati is WAY behind all the other manufacturers in online info....

Jake, the pill I'm talking about is all the way to the left, it's apparently part of the "lever assembly", #2.

Wow was this a challenge....
find and download zip, convert, open in Acrobat Pro, select, save as bitmap, open in Adobe Photoshop, rotate, convert to JPEG, save, post to Facebook, copy URL....

The issue with the little mity vacs is that there just isn't enough vacuum to do such a long line continuosly. And it doesn't "suck" fast enough. The other issue is that it will suck air past the bleeder screw threads further reducing efficiency. Pull the bleeder screw and put a very light coat of anti-sieze on the threads but NOT anywhere near the cone end!! This will create a better seal for the vacuum to be 100% effective.



I have a huge vacuum bleeder



but you can also make one from a coffee can and use a shop vac to do the sucking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgpY_oGINU8