Installing fully bled slave cylinder

Hi all, I'm trying to put a fully bled slave cylinder back in place and when I go to put it in the hole in the transmission it is about 1.5cm away from seating properly. I tried searching but all the instructions seem to deal with people putting in entirely non-bled slave cylinders, that after install you would fill with fluid. visual (I removed the two green bolts and removed the entire assembly, now when I'm trying to re-install, the flange on the cylinder is about 1.5 cm rearward of the bolt holes on the transmission) http://cdn4.pelicanparts.com/techart...mall/pic27.jpg Here are some Ideas I had: 1. I need to compress the slave cylinder while i install- I tried pushing on it to get it to compress into the hole and that didn't seem to go over that well and I tried compressing it before getting it into the hole and I couldn't get it in place before it re-extended itself 2. I need to let out some fluid and then re-bleed the system after install 3. I used the wrong flywheel and now the spacing for everything else is wrong (I'm putting a 3.2 Boxster engine in a 996 and I used all of the 996 flywheel, clutch and pressure plate as that seemed right based on measuring the old engine and this one; but the 996 flywheel is slightly thicker but I had heard that is because the transmission bell housing is deeper) - although, maybe option 2 would work even in this scenario or shortening the cylinder rod(not sure if I need the full travel). Or maybe I need to pull it all the hell apart and put a 986 flywheel on... Can anyone give me insight? I can't remember exactly what things were like when I removed it. And I'm having a hard time visualizing in my head if there should be some compression of the rod to begin with or not.

Not sure about your flywheel but if everything was stock, your observation is normal. You need a really strong hand to push in the salve cylinder (to compress the rod) and keep it there while you put on those two bolts.

I just went through this when I put my new motor in. I tried for about a half hour to get the slave back in, and laying on my back, I just could not get enough force on it to push it in, and get the first bolt started. I think if it was on a lift I could have done it. I ended up doing what you suggest in #2. I cracked the bleed nipple and quickly got the first bolt started. Of course as Murphy's law would have it, as soon as I pressurized the system, the slave exploded, and brake fluid came pouring out of the bell housing. So I got to do it over again with a brand new slave. I'm sure I could have gotten the other back together, but I decided I never wanted to touch the thing again. It was probably the most fiddly part of doing the engine swap, just because of the position of it, and how high the car needs to be to get the engine out. The other super fiddly part was getting the 3rd bolt out for the AC Compressor... Rest of it was cake.

I did the same. popped the nipple to relieve pressure and pushed it in and quickly got the bolts finger tight before closing it. I had another set of hands helping though.

I had a lot of trouble doing this - in fact I was never actually successful. I managed to get the cylinder fully bolted in but the piston was not fully seated in the arm/lever on the inside. The result was a blown out cylinder and having to pull the transmission again. I ended up installing the cylinder with the transmission out of the car, putting the transmission back in, then hooking up the line and bleeding it. One thing to keep an eye out for is that the rubber boot can hang up on the hole and make it hard to get it pushed in and seated properly. The service manual also depicts using a punch, fed through one of the bolt holes to hold it in place and lever against to line up the second hole and get a bolt started. Good luck!

I'm relieved this is a normal struggle. Whenever I go to post online about something, I always think "maybe I'm just missing something obvious or did something really wrong and dumb." Thanks for the tips. AWDguy, I have a hard time imaging two sets of hands being helpful with how little space there is to work(unless you had a lift). I may try the grunt method one more time, and if I fail then I'll just let some fluid out of the hose. Bleeding the system has to be easier than trying too compress that rod in such an awkward position.

you should be able to push the slave into position by hand but if you can't open the bleeder and try. That you stated the flywheel is different is a huge concern.....the slave may be bottoming out because of this. and dat aint good

Im pretty sure the flywheel is correct in this application(the most knowledgeable person I could find agreed with my conclusion that the flywheel matches the transmission, not the engine when dealing with Boxster/996 swaps).

I just did mine, I put the slave in after the tranny was installed in the car. I got fluid in the cylinder before install but did bleed it after install using one of those suction bleeders. Seemed to work great.

I have a motive power bleeder and a genesis bleeder bottle (amazon). I have found it much easier to drain all of the fluid from the slave cylinder and remove/install the tranny with the slave cylinder installed on the transmission. When installing the slave cylinder with the transmission in the car, once again, I will completely drain the brake fluid. With the genesis bleeder bottle, you can safely reuse the fluid and the time it takes to bleed the bubbles out is much less than the time it takes to screw with installing the slave cylinder fully pressurized. One note, do not put the fluid in the power bleeder. Fill up the reservoir, pressurize it with the power bleeder dry, bleed the system. Before the reservoir fluid gets below the clutch line, disconnect, refill, repeat.

Good advice!. I did the mistake of putting brake fluid in my power bleeder and the cap came off the reservoir under pressure and sprayed Dot 4 all over the front of the car including headlights. Luckily immediate washing saved the paint and lenses.