Hello, I have a 2020 road glide special. I just changed out the cables for the brakes and clutch. I went to go reverse bleed the clutch line through the slave cylinder bleeder valve and can not push fluid through. It is almost like it is plugged. I double checked the lines and there is nothing blocking in the line. I have also removed the bleeder valve and made sure there was no blockage there. Any suggestions?

 

Did you open the bleeder screw?

 

I found on my 2020 RGL that a traditional bleed for the clutch worked best, and normally I use a vacuum bleeder.

Time consuming yes, but effective.

Good luck!

 

By chance did you install a speed bleeder? You can't reverse bleed through a speed bleeder.

 

Yes I did, I opened it about half a turn.

 

It probably need to be open a full turn

 

I replaced the slave and had to bleed. I tried to bleed from the bottom but was not able to get it to work. I finished by bleeding the tradional way, with tube on the bleeder to a bottle on the bottom bleeder and kept the MC full with fluid. I did it by myself, but I have long arms.

 

The bleeder is the factory one. So I don’t know if it is a speed bleeder.

 

I've always used a vacuum bleeder on my bikes... On my motor vehicles I use a pressure bleeder. I wish they made a pressure cap for the HD master cylinders, that pressure bleeder is sweet for one-man operation, but I digress...


A friend tried and loved the reverse bleed process. On his recommendation, I bought a syringe and applicable tubing to reverse bleed my bikes.

FWIW...... While researching reverse bleeding, I found an article (forget where or by whom) that said when reverse bleeding, you will force any contaminates that have settled in the lines, down near the calipers, back up through the system and into the master cylinder, past its seals... The author recommended the old fashion bleeding technique to help with more efficiently purging contaminates out of the system....

I have no idea about the the validity of the author's claims, but at the time it seemed to make some sense to me. I never really had any issues with vacuum bleeding my bike's brake (clutch) systems... So the syringe and tubing sits in a "catch all" drawer in the recesses of my garage... unused...

 

I thought the hydraulic clutch master cylinder had to be partially compressed to open the path. I don't have the resources I was reading available, but something, somewhere, mentioned partially squeezing the clutch lever and inserting a stop (shim) to keep it in position.
I can't remember why or what process it was for.