Hey Ron. I gotta change my clutch, too. When I got my 71 running last
summer, I had slave cyl bleeding problems and got lots of advice. Here is
the best of it, I think:
The positioning of the slave makes it retain air - the bleeder is in the
wrong location. The answer is to bleed as normal and then manually push
the piston back from below for a minute or so. this should purge the air
back up into the line and it will rise- allow a few minutes. Then with
some pressure on the pedal, loosen the fitting at the master, which
corresponds to the highest point in the system. Be careful to protect
your paintwork. You might have to do this twice.
Please let us know how this works. It is a combination of ideas from RB
at Moss' (CA) help line, Norman Nock, the MG ace from Stockton (CA), and
little old me.
David McCartney
=============================================================
Ron Cresswell wrote:
> Midget & Sprite Club - http://www.midgetspriteclub.com/
>
> --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------
> Start Your Own FREE Email List at ListBot
> http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> My sprite has been off the road for over a week now with a
> clutch that won't engage (disengage? - allow me to get into
> gear!). I am having trouble narrowing down the cause and I
> thought someone out there might be able to offer some
> suggestions.
>
> First of all, the clutch started misbehaving a while ago,
> crunching second gear. A week and a bit ago I took the
> engine out and replaced the driven plate and the thrust
> bearing. The engine/gearbox is a 1275 A series, by the way.
> After everything was back in place, I couldn't get into any
> gears at all.
>
> Whilst bleeding the clutch, I was under the car with a
> friend pushing the peddle, and I noticed that the clutch
> fork seemed to curve the wrong way (away from the slave
> cylinder rather than towards it). Clearly 40 years of
> pushing finally took it's toll and it had bent. I assumed
> that this was the problem, but now I'm not so sure.
>
> With a friend depressing the clutch peddle I measured the
> travel of the push rod between the slave cylinder and the
> clutch fork. It was about 10mm. I then removed the steel cup
> in the slave cylinder that the push rod sits in, and
> inserted 6 washers between the rubber cup and the steel cup
> to artificially increase the length of the push rod (to
> compensate for the bent clutch fork). I then measured it's
> travel again - 6mm (the washers took up about 6mm
> themselves, so numbers don't quite add up).
>
> So possibilities seem to be - (a) clutch not bled properly;
> (b) bent clutch fork; (c) fluid returning past the cylinder
> in the master cylinder.
>
> Now (a) *might* be the case - but we went through about 3
> master cylinders full of fluid bleeding it and there were no
> bubbles coming through.
>
> (b) I can't see being the problem - mainly because as the
> clutch fork bends, the only result is that the slave
> cylinder returns to a more-displaced starting position and
> it's total travel should only depend on the amount of fluid
> pushed through by the master cylinder, shouldn't it?
>
> and (c) I don't know how much pressure is required for this,
> but with the clutch peddle depressed the push rod held it's
> displacement - i.e. is wasn't slowly returning to its
> original position.
>
> Anyone any ideas? In fact, does anyone know how much travel
> the push rod should go through? (because that might narrow
> it down to (a) or (c) ).
>
> Any advice gratefully received chaps
>
> Warm regards
>
> Ron
> --
> Dr R.W.Cresswell
> Manager, CFD&EM
> Compumod Pty Ltd
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, write to midgetspriteclub-unsubscribe@listbot.com
|