Topic

I wonder if someone can point me in the right direction, I am looking to rebleed my clutch. I fitted a new clutch last year and quickly managed to get it in for the MOT. Sadly this year so many things have got in the way of enjoying the car, but finally I have managed to roll it out to play these last few weeks before once again MOT time. I seem to have a tremendous amount of travel before the clutch bites, at the very end of the pedal travel, and the embarrassment of sounding like a learner driver at best or a spitfire taking off is bugging me. I am thinking maybe some air is still in the system, and I have read about bleeding the master cylinder, before the slave. Am I right that you just loosed the pipe connection from the top of the master cylinder to pump out any air, then bleed it at the slave cylinder bleed nipple. I ask, as all I did previously was at the slave cylinder only.

Yes, that should be the process. Make sure you keep topping up the fluid reservoir so no further air gets into the system.

"..a tremendous amount of travel before the clutch bites, at the very end of the pedal" to clarify, does it bite at the top or the bottom end of the pedal travel ?

It's all but at the top of the travel.

I can’t work out why one car can be so problematic whilst another seems to bleed itself & this pertains to clutch, brakes & coolant.
Primarily I work on my own with the occasional visits into my enclave by an assistant & I rarely need a pedal pusher.
It makes no sense.
Having read loads of horror stories about refilling the coolant, trepidation quotients were set at red on the first attempt. Sticking strictly to our “how to’s” & after a couple of burps at each bleed point it was fine. However so entrenched was the myth of airlock that I spent the next week convinced it couldn’t be right & familiarised myself with the head gasket replaced procedures.
I’ve changed the slave cylinder about eighteen month ago & using my “Easibleed” it was done quickly & successfully.
Brakes have had the Easibleed treatment but I had to make an adapter for the master cylinder as there was no adapter supplied.
Any advice on using the Easibleed? Don’t use too high a pressure, as little as you can to get it working AND keep an eye on the fluid levels. Obviously.
M

trevtherev wrote:

It's all but at the top of the travel.

If you mean that the clutch only "bites" (i.e. revs drop and motion starts) as the pedal gets back UP to the TOP of it's travel, then I suspect that the real problem is a badly worn clutch plate, or just possibly a plate contaminated with either engine or gearbox oil (unlikely, I would have thought). If you have detected any clutch slip (typically, full throttle going up a steep hill with engine near maximum torque rpm), then you DO have a worn - out or contaminated clutch. -Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, because gearbox will have to be detached, and I understand this is quite difficult in-situ, and dropping the subframe is not exactly a trivial job!

It was a new clutch and pressure plate fitted along with a replacement gearbox, it also has the uprated clutch release arm. I do not get any slip. It just seems to only bite when the pedal is all but let out. As I said, I don't remember it being like this last year when I was able to get some miles on it. I had thought maybe I need to change seals in master and slave cylinders?

Seems strange to me, as previously mentioned a clutch biting at the end of pedal travel normally indicates a clutch on its way out but you say it was new last year? Air in the system would normally mean you have trouble selecting a gear as the clutch does not fully disengage and/or slowly engages itself whilst sitting with your foot on the clutch (bad seals).
I would look at the slave to clutch arm there should be a small amount of play between them when the pedal is fully up, if not I would take the slave off to check the piston is going right back to fully engage the clutch. I read recently of a similar problem on a midget where someone previously had fitted the wrong slave push rod (longer) but I doubt that's the case here as you do not mention this as being changed. If you have to take the slave off I would be tempted to fit a new one anyway and work from there.
The elephant in the room is all the new bits were they all like for like? did anyone compare them? if the wrong clutch cover or release bearing was fitted it could give these symptoms as could incorrect fitting. Hopefully you will find a quick cheap fix and share it on here even if it's embarrassing, I only know a bit cos of all the mistakes I've made

That last stanza could easily be the chorus of the TBar song & I suspect most of us will identify with it.
Those who didn’t make a mistake didn’t make anything.
M

The clutch throw out arm can stick and even seize where it pivots in the bellhousing, maybe it sticking a bit

i wonder why they vary so much. The biting point on my 135 is fairly high in the pedal though not at the top and theres no sign of slip. I only noticed it in comparison with the blue 115 I had where the biting point was lower in the pedal travel.

The only clutch that I have ever replaced in a car in nearly fifty three years driving is the one in my current TF. It didn't need replacing but while changing engines it received a new clutch, greasable release arm, slave cylinder and new hose, all because it seemed the right thing to do. The only problem I had was actually bleeding the air out on my own, I resorted to an "easi bleed". I think my delicate clutch use comes from driving David Brown tractors in the sixties/seventies, they were ventilated via a grill at the top of the housing, if you slipped the clutch the smoke and the stench fumes came straight back at you. If that wasn't enough my father would verbally let me know what I was doing wrong!
Having digressed from the subject, my experience on tractors was that as the clutch wears it disengages with less pedal movement not more, I suspect that if it is travelling to the floor to disengage then; air in the system or wear/slack in the mechanical linkages or the a faulty clutch. A very remote possibility is that the upgraded release arm has the arm at slightly the wrong angle to the shaft. Mistakes do happen in low volume production, I have recently received an adjustable suspension arm for another car, it had right handed threads at each end instead of left hand at one end and right hand at the other.
EDIT
I have just re read your post, I thought that you meant that the clutch only disengaged close to hitting the floor, hence the grinding of gears and kangaroo petrol.

I’ve never driven any two tractors that had even the vaguest similars to each other. The two big John Deere up the road are the same vintage & I use vintage in it’s truest sense; one could be a bus the other a canal boat so similar are they. My grey fergie was a dolly, my pall’s is a dog.
I had to chose between the tractor or the MG, I can drive a tractor any time, the MG was a glitch in my wife’s matrix & I got away with it.
My lad & I could throw a gearbox out & back into a Land Rover in no time, I was a lot younger then.
M