Lost me clutch, thoughts? Found the fault with a pic.

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Flossie

Flossie

Well-Known Member
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11,325
Location
Shropshire
Gears, mainly 1st and reverse were getting hard to engage for a while then suddenly got worse, especially reverse one day, then...weirdly...it was OK again on the same day, crunching then..no crunching?
Next day(yesterday) it started crunching again and as I had a bit of excess play at the pedal I adjusted the master pushrod. Great, slipped into all gears lovely (1985 110 LT77 box btw). Later on that day it started crunching again then the pedal went to the floor and stayed there, no clutch at all now. I lifted the pedal back up and it would only go half way down before going rock solid, still no clutch. Got home by cranking it in 2nd gear until it fired, luckily I was only near home on a quiet road.
Nothing amiss visually so removed the master and all that looks good, seal, bore etc, no loss of fluid, then I removed the slave and that looks like new too. I looked into the hole for the slave and put as much pressure by hand as I can on the pushrod and it doesn't appear to have punched through the clutch arm. My next thought was to use a big G clamp to try and compress in the pushrod and see if the clutch disengages, proving a master or slave issue, but I couldn't get the arm to move but sort of expected that as the cover plate needs a leg and hydraulics to move it after all.
I've ordered a new trw master and slave anyway but hoping it isn't a box out job. I can feel the clutch arm moving and coming up against the thrust bearing ok. Clutch fluid was black.
 
Could be the clutch flexi pipe has delaminated inside, result black fluid and possible blockage. Remove pipe from slave and see if fluid will flow from master.
 
New master and slave fitted, bled and bled until I've got constant fluid coming through with no air . Pedal goes to the floor with no resistance whatsoever.
Box has got to come out, bugger!
 
Well, it's a good ideda to do the slave and master when you do the clutch anyway, so at least you've got those all ready to go. Sometimes when I've changed clutches, the 'fingers' on the clutch mechanism look very worn, where the release bearing touches them. I've never seen any completely wear throguh but I'm sure they could in some cases.
 
20250524_120400.jpg
 
The clutch fork is an item that went downhill when the coilers arrived, Series 3 had a cast item with a nylon bearing for the post.
So called heavy duty [ extra bit of metal welded on the back of arm] available.
Problem I have had with a replacement is loss of one of the pins for the swivel paddles, clutch kept working but was rather stiff. [ Pin was only held in place by being spread like a rivet] Replacement I put some weld on the pin/arm.
Also check pivot post for the arm has not worn badly, should be nice and round.
 
Pivot was fine, welded the arm up with an extra thick plate for insurance. Spent what seemed hrs trying to get the box mated back up but got there in the end, bolted that back up, refitted the slave and tried the clutch...no pressure at the pedal until the last 3" of movement, tried bleeding it again but there was no air, backed off the master push rod nut and it improved. Backed the nut off until it was on the last of the threads and it was much better. That's not right though! It 'looks' like , eyeing it up, not scientific, that the master push rod is around 1/4" shorter than the original one which is about how much extra thread I need to enable the nylock adjusting nut to be fully on and engaging the nylon bit. I'll have to remove the new master and swop over push rods to confirm but I'm tired and damp and hungry so that'll be a job for probably Monday now.
 
The clutch master cylinders do vary a bit from one to the other, and from batch to batch. I had one once where the thread was poorly formed and the nuts were always extremely stiff which made adjustment difficult. Interestingly, when buying them I noticed that the part number remains the same all the way back to the series models so they haven't changed much over the years. Later models have a pressure switch with some wires that go to the ECU - I think it might be something to do with the anti stall mechanism, to deliver a bit more fuel as the clutch goes up. But that goes in a T connector on the pipe rather than an aperture in the casting itself.
 
Swopped over the master pushrods and all is well again. Had some issues bleeding the clutch but got there in the end, all back together and a limited test on the drive has given me good rev and first gears again.
In case someone does a search and comes across this thread...if removing the slave shows the pushrod just resting inside the bell housing then your clutch fork pivot has punched through, pushrod should protrude around 40/50mm .
 
This thread has got me slightly paranoid about my clutch fork giving up now! :oops:

I guess there's not really much you can do to check it without actually having the box out? Unless you can take the slave cylinder out and get an endoscope in if there's enough space?
 
Having recently suffered the hole in fork thing - there is plenty space to get your endoscope in and the signs would be easy to see i.e bulged or deformed knob on the engine side of the pivot
 
Had my landy a long time. When it was still a 19j about 23 year ago had the original fork go through.
Also found its pivot had worn to a point. Replaced with standard fork and new pivot with a dab of grease on it.
3 Years later 19j was done and replaced with a Defender 200tdi Fork was fine. [clutch done]
In 2018 clutch suddenly went stiff but kept working. Decided that given the milage/time I would haul the engine out do the clutch, release bearing and crank rear seal. The arm and its pivot were fine but one of the paddles that push on the release bearing had gone walkabout.
Replaced with HD arm and also a dab of weld on the ends of the pins [just spread like a rivet] on replacement arm. The oil leak turned out to be gear box input seal but the crank one got done anyway.
After all this time there can not be many that have not had clutch/arm replacement at some time. TD5 went back to the series 3 type cast fork which is pretty much bomb proof.
 
tottot said:
After all this time there can not be many that have not had clutch/arm replacement at some time.
Click to expand...
I do fear mine might be one of those! 1988 but only covered 84k as it's sat off the road from 2001-2024. Although I do have a feeling she's had engine work done at some point before being laid up so maybe... I'll have to try and check if possible before any long trips.
 
Endoscope attachment for I phone and look through the slave as per @D1Nut post.
Mine's arm went at 69K
[ I keep a record of major repair/service items] It would depend on where you live, driving with me is mostly up hill and down the cwm on back roads so lots of changes.
 
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