hi, my sisters rang last week to say she lost the ability to change gear on the motorway. the car has since been recovered i looked at it and found the clutch release arm to be seized i understand this is fairly common and this week have had the gearbox off and replaced it, i left the clutch as it appeared ok and has only covered 50k. now ive reassembled it all she still can't select gear with the engine running. the new release arm moves freely. ive had the slave cylinder apart and there are no signs of leaking there, although it only has 1 seal and the mg parts catalogue appears to show 2.
i have bleed the clutch system using a pressurised easy bleed system i get a good flow of fluid from the top union on the master cylinder aswell as from the slave cylinder, the pedal feels good too but still i can't select any gear when the engine is running. there does seem to be alot of flex in the slave cylinder mounting bracket but im not sure if this would cause an issue. im at a bit of a loss as to where to go next? do i replace the slave or master cylinders or do i look towards the release bearing or clutch components. the car showed no sign of clutch failure before this, i can be sure of this as i took it for a hard drive shortly before it broke down.
the only other point of note i can see is if you hold the clutch pedal down then open the slave cylinder bleed nipple to bleed it the pedal fails to return when the nipple is closed, if you pull the pedal back up manually then it operates fine after that until you open the nipple with it depressed again.
cheers
chris
Edited by thomp1983 on 29/05/2009 at 11:04
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The stiffnes of the pedal and the flxing of the bracket is indicating there is something still wrong in the clutch. Did you remove the the clutch and inspect it and the actualtion fingers. Regards Peter
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sadly peter no i didn't inspect the clutch as i put it down to the obviously seized release arm. ive just picked up a new clutch so will be fitting that this afternoon, at least it won't take to long now i know where all the bolts are
chris
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new clutch fitted and all is well. what had actually happened was a section of the friction plate had broken allowing one of the springs to drop down behind the release fingers in the casing stopping the clutch from disengaging, i couldn't see this when i had originally inspected the clutch with a torch through the casing. a timely reminder to take everything apart and check properly even if you know another part is faulty and may be the cause of the problem.
cheers
chris
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Glad it's fixed. Regards Peter
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