Saturn Ion Hydraulic Clutch Line disconnect
 

Hi,
I am trying to pull the manual tranny out of my 2004 Saturn Ion 3 and can't get the clutch line disconnected. I am not sure where the separation should occur.

Referring to the picture attached, can someone tell me if the separation occurs to the right of the retaining clip (looks like white vertical line in the image), between the retaining clip and the bleeder valve, or to the left of the bleeder valve?

I have pulled as hard as I dare and there is no movement anywhere and I want to make sure I pull in the right place. The tube will turn slightly (limited by the balance of the tube routed to the clutch master cylinder), but if I try to pull tube off what looks to be a nipple that has expanded the tube slightly, it doesn't come off easily. It also doesn't make sense that it would separate here as there would be no purpose for the clip that I removed.

Any help would be great,
Thanks,
JB

The separation should be to the right of the white tab,according to my service manual. As mine is an automatic, I have no first hand experience with it. It probably will take a pretty aggressive pull to remove it-maybe even a flat-bladed screwdriver at the junction to gradually pry it loose. I'll try to upload a picture.

Attachment 674


Here's a pic.Hope it helps.

Thanks, I have aggressively pulled there, I used pliers to squeeze on black tubing to rotate and pull, but no luck getting it to separate. I put WD-40 on it in hopes that might help some, and even gently heated the rubber hoping it would soften some. I have some pretty good teeth mark in the plastic tubing from pulling on it now.

I don't see how I could use a screwdriver to pry this out, but if there is a way, please elaborate....

Thanks for the info though, at least I won't apply force in wrong place now!

Is there enough slack in the line to split it with a box cutter about 1/2" and then cut that part off and reattach it when you need to? Kind of like removing heater hoses from your heater core. If not, then I don't know what to tell you because, like Neil, I have an automatic. I looked in my Haynes manual and those bastards don't even mention the clutch slave or master anywhere I can find!

I could cut it off, but then it would be messy to replace so I would at least like to break it in the process of trying to remove it as opposed to overtly cutting it... Yeah, I have that same crappy manual which is why I am here on this forum!
Thansk
JB

Ugh, I still am not able to get the line separated. From what people have posted, I think I can grab the plastic to the right of the clip and turn/pull to disengage, but it won't budge. If anyone has a close up of the clutch line connector at the slave end that would be great, even the uploaded exploded diagram is a bit hard to make out exactly how that connector comes apart.

After digging around on ebay, I found someone selling the same tranny that didn't just cut the tube, and had a high enough resolution photo to be useful. Attached is a crop of a pic of the clutch line disconnected.

Success!
 

I managed to get the tube removed once I knew for sure where to apply force. To complete this thread, I have attached a picture showing the data I had sought so feverishly in hopes it will help someone else. It was really stuck, I ended up putting 3 vise grips on the tube right next to each other to keep them from sliding. I think used a screw driver to pry between the plastic housing and the vise grip to push the tube it out. Even with long screw driver, it was some good force to get it come out. You can see the stacked vise grips in the photo, and also see the rust on the end of the clutch line, possibly this is what made it so hard to separate.

thanks for taking the time to come back and post the resolution
far too often people do a drive-by for advice and we never know if/how the issue was solved.

Stick around and keep contributing!