3.0 manual, bad clutch slave?

[TitanSilber3.0]

I'm at the end of my rope here. I'll qualify this by saying that I've bled brakes and BMW slave cylinders many times (successfully) in the past. However, I just finished a brake fluid flush on the X5 (again, successfully) only to be stumped by the slave cylinder.

The clutch has felt a little funny for about a month now. The clutch "pickup" point has gotten closer to the floor, and seems have less room for error. It's unbelievably jerky from a stop, and the 1-2 shift will snap my passengers necks. It's had a bit of this sensation since new (it's a 2002), but seems to have gotten tougher to drive as of late.

So I decided at the end of my brake flush to go ahead and throw in the CDV that I'd purchased months ago. Installation was messy, but no problem. However, when I hooked up the catch can and the bleeder (Motive), all I get through the line is air, air, and lots of air. I've been through three full Motive tanks of air. I start at 20psi, and within 10 seconds so much air has been pushed through the line I'm at 0psi.

Do I need to back bleed some fluid into the slave to "prime" it? It seems odd to me that the master cylinder is completely full, yet I'm getting air out of the line into the catch can. Is the slave cylinder bad? Has the piston inside dislodged itself by being pushed out too far?

Can somebody help a brother out and shed some light on this? Am I overlooking something stupidly easy?

Thanks,

Jason