Clutch slave/damper diagnosis

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garydebergerac

Member
Posts
12
Hey all,

I've been spending a bit looking through these forums so I think I know what my problem is, but just to be sure...

Recently, I started getting a lot of vibration when taking off in 1st, entire dashboard shaking kind of vibration. Yesterday, it suddenly became very, very difficult to get into 1st gear, and almost impossible into reverse without a fair amount of grinding.

Everything I am seeing so far is telling me slave cylinder and/or clutch damper, and I've seen several posts that say replace the master cylinder at the same time, so I'll plan on that. Clutch was replaced about 80,000Kms ago, so I can't imagine that the shifting problems are related to the clutch itself.

But when looking around under the hood today, I noticed this first picture, which is of the hose that leads to the slave cylinder. A section of it has been replaced with a flexible tubing (although it sort of looks factory installed) and there seems to be a little leak there. In the second picture, its easy to see that there is a fair amount of fluid around the slave cylinder, but I am wondering if its just this tube leaking and then getting sprayed onto the side of the motor, where it drips down and collects on the slave cylinder.

The weird thing is that the master cylinder reservoir is pretty much full.

Obviously replacing the tube and bleeding would be easier than replacing everything, but what do you guys think?
 

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If you're getting clutch judder then it's not the slave cylinder a t fault, it'll most likely be the clutch itself.
 
pipe is std fit oil is from engine etc ,i should think your fault is something else ,check rubber dough nut on the rear of rear prop all the ujs ,does clutch smell ,can you engage all gears with clutch pressed stood still?
 
As I drove about 100kms yesterday, when I got back I was having a hard time getting it in any gear. Going from first to reverse quickly helped, and possibly the pumping helped. But when I got back, it was pretty much a no-go in any gear, with reverse grinding like crazy unless you did a quick shift.

The weird thing about the oil on the tube is that it is ONLY at that joint, and again this is the tube that feeds the slave cylinder. If you look at the rest of it, its dry. Most of the black you see on the tube is where the dirt came off as I moved it around, but if you look closely at the top right of the joint, you can see the fluid has pooled there a bit, and it is only there and slightly above on the tubing itself, as though it leaked there and what little is on the tube is from the spray of the leak.
 
well, as soon as i loosened the nipple, fluid started dripping and pushing the pedal to the floor made it gush. The reservoir is now a little more than half full as well.

But if the slave was bad, wouldn't that be leaking at least a bit of fluid as well, as though the seal inside busted and therefor the rod doesn't push far enough? The reservoir was pretty much full, but after seeing how much came out on one pedal push, I'd think that if the slave or this tube were the problem, the reservoir would have emptied some.
 
garydebergerac said:
well, as soon as i loosened the nipple, fluid started dripping and pushing the pedal to the floor made it gush. The reservoir is now a little more than half full as well.

But if the slave was bad, wouldn't that be leaking at least a bit of fluid as well, as though the seal inside busted and therefor the rod doesn't push far enough? The reservoir was pretty much full, but after seeing how much came out on one pedal push, I'd think that if the slave or this tube were the problem, the reservoir would have emptied some.
Click to expand...
often they just weep a little so not noticeable in res but enough for air to be sucked in ,you need to decide if its clutch not been released by slave or other fault like poor clutch cover as suggested
 
I just have a hard time believing that the clutch is gone after 80K kms, and although that was done under the previous owner, no matter what they were towing that seems a bit unreasonable. Thanks for the help, I guess I'll try the cylinders first just in case.
 
garydebergerac said:
I just have a hard time believing that the clutch is gone after 80K kms, and although that was done under the previous owner, no matter what they were towing that seems a bit unreasonable. Thanks for the help, I guess I'll try the cylinders first just in case.
Click to expand...
80k seems believable especially if driven badly
 
Ok, so I've just replaced the entire clutch assembly,and the judder is gone and seems to have been clutch fork related, as the clutch disk itself was in pretty good shape, almost new. Also some wear on the pressure plate teeth, so I am sure that is all part of the judder and noise problem.

I am extremely upset to find that there is basically no change in my ability to get in and out of gear. Reverse is almost impossible without turning the car off. While pumping the pedal seems to help some, it still never gets you to a point where the shifter goes into first gear without any hangups. Once its moving, the rest seem to change fairly well, although once going into third I got some grinding. I obviously haven't driven the car for more than 15 minutes at this point, however.

The only piece yet to be changed is the clutch damper, although my mechanic seems to think that there are two bushings on the clutch pedal that are broken/missing, and he thinks that might be a contributor, leaving too much play.

When I first started researching this, I found a few posts about the air in the hydraulics, and that you really want to use the bleeding mechanism/machine in order to make sure that its clean. Can we hope its simply that, and not my transmission?

Thanks for your help!!
 
well, I've already bought a new one, so when we re-bleed, might as well change it. But like I said, pumping helps but its not like it makes getting into first a totally smooth operation. And reverse is just impossible, no matter how much I pump. Is it really possible that these two little pedal bushings and air can be 100% responsible, or should I prepare myself for some transmission work.

As an aside, I recently started parking on an incline, which I would guess would put some pressure on the transmission, in case that could be a contributing factor.

Not only did I do the clutch, but timing and the rear swing arms/a-frame bushings and ball joint, so this last little trip was pretty expensive. It is entirely possible that I will go absolutely ballistic if I also end up having to rework the transmission.
 
Well, good news. There is a little clutch stop under the pedal that just needed some adjustment, which I guess is a little odd seeing as how its a new clutch. The downside is that even though my clutch fork was bad (the clutch disc itself was pretty much ok), doing this in the beginning probably would have saved a bunch of work, if only temporarily. Just because its hydraulic doesn't mean there aren't any adjustments!!
 
Last edited:
i'm reading this topic trying to get some insight on my clutch problem on Discovery 1.
I have problems engaging gears and pedal is now a bit soft but not completely.
However when trying to bleed the system no fluid comes out of the slave cylinder and the fluid level goes down when the pedal is released (not when depressed). I keep adding fluid with the same result. Would this indicate faulty slave cylinder ?
I've successfully bled the system in the past when a new damper was fitted a couple of months ago.
 
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