Clutch release

[Ronald Gittings]

Hi,

Perhaps I could share a problem with you all that has taken me some 12 months to resolve, if indeed it is now resolved? If anyone else has had a similar problem I would be glad to hear about it. For some 12 months now I have had a problem engaging gear, I could resolve the problem by bleeding the clutch system but it would only last perhaps a couple of hundred miles before the problem returned. After trying various 'solutions' I bought a new slave cylinder from the MGOC, but it was faulty and they replaced it. The new one seemed fine, but the problem persisted. I have now discovered that it was also faulty, nothing obvious but it had a small leak with the fluid being contained within the rubber boot that protected the push rod end of the cylinder, the leak couldn't be seen until the cylinder was dismantled. Both of the cylinders were OE spec, expensive and not the cheaper after market version, you get what you pay for, or so I thought! But after 2 failures I've now ordered the cheaper version, couldn't possibly be any worse, could it.

But that's not all, I've never been really happy with the amount of 'throw' produced at the clutch, the best I could acheive was 11mm, which was really on the very lower edge of acceptable. So this has all prompted me to completely overhaul the system. With the pedal cover off and the pedal completely depressed the push rod in the master cylinder didn't seem to depress as far as it should. The rear edge of the pedal was hard against the edge of the hole upon which the pedal cover is fitted, thus preventing any further movement of the master cylinder. I took out a small V shaped recess with a bench grinder so the pedal no longer bottomed out, and took about 2mm off the back edge. On investigating the pedal inside it was also bottoming out on about 3 to 4mm of carpet, I removed a small section of said carpet so the the pedal now bottoms out on the actual bulkhead. All of this has gained me about 5mm of play, meaning that the master cylinder push rod can now go in as far as it can. Some of this gain has been been transferred to the slave cylinder allowing a much better gear selection. Now if I can get a leak proof slave cylinder I should be able to enjoy some decent motoring as the warmer weather aproaches.

Has anyone else had this sort of problem, if so how was it resolved?