So today we're introducing our slave cylinder setup tool. What this will allow you to do is accurately measure for slave cylinder shim, which is crucial in the life of your clutch hydraulic system. It provides a more accurate measurement than the traditional methods that people have been using to do this install or to do these setups.

What we have here are Slave Cylinder Setup Tools for C5 and C6 Corvette, as well as your traditional Tremec transmission mounting flange that you typically see on an 4th Gen F-Body GTO, the newer magnum transmission, they all have this style of interface between the bell housing and the front plate of the transmission.

Tools You Will Need:

• 9/16 Wrench
• 15mm Wrench
• 2 bell housing bolts (that would hold your transmission to the bell housing)
• Washers
• Caliper
• Shim Kit (Optional)

Note: If you do not have one of these and you're a car guy, you need one of these. If you are a car guy, chances are you already have one of these.

Prepping The F-Body Slave Cylinder

If you have an F-Body style like this one, there's a spring here. You're going to pop this off just like that. Remove the spring and you'll put this back on. And we're going to make sure that this is fully seated on the base. In an F-Body application, the throw out bearing will actually go down and touch the base. A Dodge Viper has a very similar slave cylinder to this. And as far as how it looks, it's a little longer. The throw out bearing won't go all the way down to the base. You need to make sure that that is all the way down as far as it'll go. That's the only way that you're going to get an accurate measurement.

Setting Up The Front Plate Side

So we're going to start with the front plate side of the transmission. I've just got the front plate laying on a table here for the ease of this video. Normally, this is going to be bolted to your transmission, sitting on a transmission jack, ready to go in the car. There'll be an input shaft here. So the first thing we want to do, put our slave cylinder on. This is different for every slave cylinder, depending on what type you're using.

Slave Cylinder Setup Tool Orientation

You can see that the tool has an arrow cut into it, rather, and that's to indicate this needs to point to the top. So we're going to start with our hardware and spacers and we're going to insert these through this bottom hole. And we're going to insert another bolt through this top hole here. And these are pretty standard locations. Every transmission with this flange pattern has these two bolt holes

Install Setup Tool Hardware

And then we're going to slip our spacers down over our bolts like this, add our install tool. And as you can see, it's got a hole in the center for your input shaft to stick through. When your transmission is assembled, your input shaft will be sticking through this opening here. So we've got our slate cylinder all the way down on the surface of the front plate bearing, all the way down.

Now You Have A Known Distance (4.5 inches)

And now we have a target point to measure from. And what this does is it gives us a known distance from the face of this flange down to the face of this bearing, because from the face of this tool down to the face of the transmission front blade is four and a half inches. Then you're going to use the tail side of your caliper and you're just going to select one of these holes. And the nice thing about this is you'll see on the other side measuring the actual pressure plate fingers themselves.

Measure The Distance From Tool To Slave Cylinder's Throw Out Bearing

These holes in these different locations really come in handy depending on what clutch you have and where your engine is situated as far as rotation. Another thing that it allows you to do is you can take multiple measurements and average it out across this face if it's not seated perfectly flat, because these things do have some rock to it when it's just sitting here unloaded.

How To Get Front Plate Side Measurements

For an average, we're within a couple of measurements pretty much all the way around the bearing. Now we have a measurement of 2.59, and now we know we can take that distance and subtract it from our known value of four and a half inches. And that will give us our current install height of the slave cylinder's throw out bearing itself.

Setting Up The Bell Housing Side

Okay, so on the bell housing side, we're going to have the clutch already bolted to the engine, bell housing also already bolted to the engine. Then you're going to install your tool. The bolt holes you use will be a mirror of the front plate bolts that you just used, and you're going to use two of your bolts that would normally fasten the transmission to the bell housing. This hole on a lot of bell housing is a blind hole. So we've stacked washers under this bolt to be able to get it tight. This hole here, I've never seen one that was a blind hole. And now we have another known distance to measure from. So with it set up like this, we've got all these extra holes. That way you have at least a couple of fingers that line up with the target plate.

Measure The Distance From Tool To Pressure Plate Fingers

So, same as before, you're going to take the tail of your caliper and you're going to stick it down through one of these holes. You're going to measure to the finger. Again, you can take a couple of different measurements and average it out if you feel necessary.

How To Get Bell Housing Side (Clutch) Measurements

So the measurement that we're seeing right now is 2.51. So what we're going to do is we're going to take that number 2.51 and subtract the known distance of a quarter of an inch. 0.250. And that gives us a measured depth from the face of the bell housing into the pressure plate fingers of 2.26.

Now Subtract Bell Housing Side From The Front Plate Side

So we're going to take the 2.26 measurement from this side and we're going to subtract the 1.94 one from the transmission side. And that gives us a measured distance of 0.319 thousandths.

Do You Need To Shim Your Slave Cylinder?

So what we're looking for is a measurement of around 0.150 to 0.200 of an inch. If you’re within manufacturer’s spec, then you’re done, no need to shim your slave cylinder! However, if you reside outside the manufacturer’s specifications you will need to shim your slave cylinder. So 0.150 to 0.200. And in order to achieve that target window, you're going to shim your slave cylinder using one of our shims. In our case it's 0.319 so we’ll use the 0.125 shim to bring us under spec. Bringing us to 0.194 under that 0.200 number and that would set you up nicely.

Ultimate Shim Kit

So the last thing you're going to need for this install is going to be a shim kit, like this one we have here. This is a kit that we manufacture. It comes with five different shims of varying thicknesses and you have to have these for a proper slave cylinder set up. This kit retails for $49.99, and like I say, it comes with five different shims. They're color coded and marked, so it's foolproof.

If You Need A Shim, Remove Your Slave Cylinder And Install Appropriate Shim

So back on your transmission side, you can remove your slave cylinder. And obviously, if this had an input shaft, you would just slide this down over the input shaft. You're going to line your two bolts up into the openings and then install your slave cylinder back. And that's how you actually install the shim. Now, depending on what type of car you have, some of these bolts are bigger on the Dodges. These shims are made to accommodate the bigger bolts.

Can You Stack Slave Cylinder Shims?

Yes, you can stack these shims. Let's say you needed 0.165 worth of shim. Well, you can take the 0.125 and the 0.040 and just stack them both together and that gives you the 0.165 that you need.

Now, there is a limit to this because you only have so much before you run out of register on the front plate itself. These two shims, I still have the register, but there is a limit to it. Now, if you get to the point where you're past that limit of the register, you probably need to start looking into, hey, maybe why is it doing this?

Getting Odd Numbers? Double Check Your Measurements

Just check over everything and make sure everything's installed correctly. I have personally never needed more than 0.180 - 0.190 of shim before to get in that window. So I feel like anything over 0.200 might be getting extreme and there might be something else wrong that you need to look into.