John,
Before you take to strong drink and shoot your mentor, try this.
Push the clutch pedal down to the floor (engine off) place a stick or a large
brick on pedal to keep it there. Come back tomorrow, and see if anything
changed. I had a midget clutch job that I did for a friend that wound up like
yours. An old LBC mechanic recommended this procedure, and hottdamn it
worked! YMMV
Good luck,
Rick Ewald
67 MGB
In a message dated 3/2/99 1:08:16 PM SA Eastern Standard Time,
johnt@tsquare.com writes:
> First off, I'd like to thank *everybody* for their very helpful
> suggestions.
>
>
> On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Art Pfenninger wrote:
>
> > The master cylinder can leak from within and not have any leakage
showing,
> > perhaps this is your problem.
> > ...Art
> >
>
> The master cylinder was replaced with a new one as part of our progress
> toward this point (shifting once).
>
> Missing info: We did replace the pressure plate and clutch disk but *not*
> the release bearing... the "new" one we got was chipped severely and the
> old one was still *nearly* the same thickness as the new. It was replaced
> a couple years before the car was parked. We also did not replace the
> pilot bushing or any of the parts in the clutch fork hinge. These were
> also replaced a couple years before the car was parked, at the same time
> as the release bearing.
>
> The clevis bolt at the top end shows no visible signs of wear (it was
> replaced about 3 months before the car was parked). The master cylinder
> fork is new with the master cylinder, and therefore not ovalled. The bolt
> between the slave cylinder and the clutch fork is "new" (it's not quite
> right, but there isn't any slop in there).
>
> I don't *think* that I put the clutch plate in backwards... my current
> mentor claimed that it would be impossible to do so and get everything
> cinched down flat. I checked the "This Side Forward" (or whatever it
> was) label on the clutch disk a few times before assembling, so I don't
> think that's it. I hope. I have suffered brain fade before, though.
>
> The reason I keep leaning toward air in the lines is the variable nature
> of the problem... and the fact that it recovers on its own. The
> possibility that the hose is bad is enticing, as it would explain things
> and be cheap to replace. However, it was installed about 1 year before
> the car was parked, so it shouldn't be too bad.
>
> The pressure on the Ezi-Bleed was cranked up pretty high (I thought you
> used 30 psi or less, he was using 60+). I wonder if all that pressure
> could have shoved the bubble off to one side (and made it smaller) so it
> didn't completely bleed. Or, emulsified the hydraulic fluid with
> teeny-tiny bubbles. We were using silicone brake fluid, the first time I
> ever saw it, and I couldn't tell if it was excessively cloudy or not.
>
> Well, given that I don't have any money left, I'm thinking of trying these
> things:
>
> 1) new clevis bolt and slave cylinder fork if available, otherwise slave
> cylinder.
> 2) new hose.
> 3) bleeding it some more, the old fashioned way.
> 4) A tranquilizer dart gun for use on my mentor. If we have to take out
> the engine to replace the release bearing and pilot bushing, I'm going to
> need it.
>
> OK, now you can start yelling about me being my own DPO.
>
> --
> John M. Trindle | jtrindle@tsquare.com | Tidewater Sports Car Club
> '73 MGB DSP | '69 Spitfire H Stock | '88 RX-7 C Stock
>
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