Clutch slave went bang

Hi guys, hope everyone is well.

Last night while changing gear on the dual carriageway my clutch went to the floor and never came back up. Looked inside the engine bay and the slave cylinder has split, theres a spring hanging out and fluid pouring out the bottom of the engine bay. Managed to limp it to a friends house 2 miles down the road in first gear and parked it up.

Slave mounting bracket is twisted and i couldn't move the clutch release lever by hand, is this supposed to rotate easily? I've read a few threads on here about how they can seize and might be free'd up with wd40 but could require the bell housing to be taken off for a proper re-grease. But nobody mentions how much resistance the arm has when pushed by hand.

I'm obviously going to need a new master/slave system (will a £50 one off ebay be okay or is there a specific type i should be going for?) and a new mounting bracket, but i don't want to fit them and find out something else is wrong with it that creates the same problem again a few weeks later.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

try the arm first and I take it you have a 1800,and do not take the top off the master cylinder at all ,it is not a long job it maybe the bracket has split and let go, like the wife's did, put a new one on and no problems

the clutch arm should "jiggle" a little bit, but be damned near impossible to move any further by hand

Take the bracket off (3 bolts) and look for any broken welds/etc, as any flex in this will massively reduce the amount of effort the hydraulics can produce on the clutch

You should be able to rotate clutch arm a few degrees each way easily, if you can' it is seized and the cause of your problem, free this before fitting new parts or they will go the same way as the old

Thanks dude, the clutch release arm was pretty rusty and even with a 12" adjustable on the end it wouldn't budge. Soaked it in wd40 and managed to get it to move a bit smoother when using the spanner as a lever. Wont turn by hand but can be rotated fairly easily back and forth using just two fingers on the spanner. The slave bracket was also rusty and the two bent edges near the slave cylinder mounting point had cracked/split, leading to one of them giving way and bending under the force of the clutch be used.

New clutch hydraulics and mounting plate turning up tomorrow. Fingers crossed

Keep working oil into the clutch arm bush

So i got the new clutch hydraulics and the clutch release arm didn't really want to move over towards the drivers side very much. The clutch bite point was about 3mm from the floor and to disengage fully i would have had to cut a hole in the footwell to press it down further. Had someone pushing the clutch while i got the wd40 spraying on there and it seems a lot better now. Gonna start working it every day for the next week or so while putting some oil lube into it (instead of wd40) to hopefully keep it going a bit nicer.

New clutch bracket doesn't look amazing though (cheapy allmakes brand), got a tiny bit of motion in it and the clutch slave visible moves when the clutch is pressed. I guess it was cheap!

Well the wd40 worked for a bit, then it was a little stiff for a while, free'd up a bit, went stiff again. Went for some 3in1 spray oil from wilkinsons and it's loosened up pretty well after a 5-6 hour soak in that! Just been for a drive round and the clutch is smooth through the whole range of motion and bite point is a good 1.5-2" off the floor now and car doesn't start to roll even slightly until clutch is raised to 0.5". Without tempting fate, if it stays like this i'll be very happy!

Only problem now is the smooth motion has highlighted a slight stiff/grindy/worn spot in the clutch peddles range of motion. Think the hinge might be worn to the point you can feel it slightly through the pedal. Is this worth sorting or shall i just ignore it and move onto fixing other problems?

Give it some lubrication as well

I gave it a spray with the 3-in-one, which got rid of the annoying squeak noise from the pedal mechanism, but the grinding feeling is still there. Thicker oil?

krisboats said:

I gave it a spray with the 3-in-one, which got rid of the annoying squeak noise from the pedal mechanism, but the grinding feeling is still there. Thicker oil?

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Engine oil is your friend when lubricating any part of the clutch mechanism .
Use a few drops on the release arm bush and pedal pivot bush. Repeat this at every oil change for total reliability. When you change the clutch, make sure the correct lubricant is applied to the mechanism in the bell housing.

Cheers mate. It's feeling really nice now and isn't anywhere near as stiff to use as it has been, but.... and there seems to always be a but.... When the engine is up to temperature it stiffens up to the point where changing gear is almost impossible. When the engine is cold and getting up to temperature it's fine. I drove 15 miles earlier and the car was okay the whole time. Leave the engine going while stationary and it's impossible to select a gear. Wait an hour at home and try it again and it flys through the gears with a lovely feeling clutch response.

Enginge materials expanding with the heat and constricting the clutch release arm?

has the grinding sound gone

teddywood1 said:

has the grinding sound gone

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Yeah the clutche pedal is now silent but you can still feel the worn part as you move it. Don't think it helps that my big feet dont push the clutch down straight and put a bit of sideways pressure on the peddle when i use it.

krisboats said:

Cheers mate. It's feeling really nice now and isn't anywhere near as stiff to use as it has been, but.... and there seems to always be a but.... When the engine is up to temperature it stiffens up to the point where changing gear is almost impossible. When the engine is cold and getting up to temperature it's fine. I drove 15 miles earlier and the car was okay the whole time. Leave the engine going while stationary and it's impossible to select a gear. Wait an hour at home and try it again and it flys through the gears with a lovely feeling clutch response.

Enginge materials expanding with the heat and constricting the clutch release arm?

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That can be an indication of a sticking release bearing. The original factory lube dries over time, causing general stiffness. If it's had a clutch change, often the no lubricant is applied, also causing stiffness.

Nodge68 said:

That can be an indication of a sticking release bearing. The original factory lube dries over time, causing general stiffness. If it's had a clutch change, often the no lubricant is applied, also causing stiffness.

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Well after a week of spraying oil and working the clutch it's pretty free now. The release arm can be moved in and out with my fingers while the slave is mounted and i can push the release arm towards the slave body by a good couple of cm easily enough.

Clutch movement also seems to be inconsistent. When it's been idle the clutch bite point is 1.5 inches from the floor and all gears shift nicely. Once the car has been used a while and is up to temp the gears can be tricky (see below). After a while clutch bite point is just a few mm off the floor and car can even want to pull away with the pedal on the floor at times. Smoewhat intermittent as the problem can happen at one set of lights, then at the next lights 100 yards down the road it drops into first happily and the bite point feels fine.

I'm finding the poor shifting while warm is still present, although more sporadic than it has been. It can be a swine to get into first and then the next 10 gearshifts fly through quite easily before it's a pain to get into second or third again. Gearbox is whining ever so slightly while driving, the noise can be reproduced by applying light pressure on the gearstick in any direction while driving along. The pitch of the whine is different for each direction the gear stick is pressed towards. Also regarding the gears, when shifting from first to second and similarly from second to third, there appears to be a small clunk that feels as though the gear is crunching into place rather than slipping in nicely. This only happens shifting up and only those gears, shifting down doesn't make any noise like that.

I also went to check the fluid level and when undoing the fluid level bolt the oil that came out was really dark brown/black. It smelt bad, but not necessarily of burning. When i saw it was so dark i put the plug back in and decided a full drain and refill was probably in order when i get another 1L of fluid.

So at this point in time i'm thinking a bad clutch hydraulic setup might have air in it despite being new? When ready to fit it i noticed there was some oil around the side of the master cylinder but the lid seemed on tight and couldn't see where it had come from so presumed it to have come out the little breather hole in the top. Now i'm wondering if it leaked slightly in transit?

Also, could the poor/undertermined level of oil in the gearbox cause the slight whining and bad shifting problems?

Cheers again guys and sorry for all the questions, just don't really fancy dropping the whole gearbox off to find everything inside looks okay now the release arm appears to be free.

Did you buy a cheapo kit off ebay or a good quality kit from a reputable supplier. It sounds like the kit your using ain't up to the job. Add to that the previously stuck arm which may have damaged it and you might need to replace it again.

Alibro said:

Did you buy a cheapo kit off ebay or a good quality kit from a reputable supplier. It sounds like the kit your using ain't up to the job. Add to that the previously stuck arm which may have damaged it and you might need to replace it again.

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Cheapo off ebay, obviously

I've chocked the slave cylinder with a piece of wood, which helped things a fair bit as the slave had a lot of movement and the bracket flexed under load...

And change that trans oil as soon as poss.

Genuine landrover bracket fitted, ANOTHER (luk branded) master/slave fitted and gearbox fluid drained and replaced. Bite point is much higher up now and the gears were behaving nicely even when the car was warmed up. The fluid that came out was very dark indeed!

New clutch slave is much more solid than the previous one. The first flexed right over when being pressed, this one moves FAR, far less. Thanks so much for the help guys. Still think the gearbox might need replacing though, the slight clunk into second and third is there, albeit quieter than it was now the new fluid is in.