Defender slave cylinder

Hi all

I am going to change the slave cylinder on my 300tdi, and after searching the forum, its apparent that you can sometimes pull the pushrod out of the bell housing by accident resulting in an gearbox out event.

Any tips on removing the slave, can I get some wire nosed pliers behind and hold the rod ?. Or will it just remain in place if I am careful, .

what should I expect ?

thanks all
Ray

I changed my slave last week on my 200tdi. With the hose removed and the bolts out I slowly edged it out until i could grab it and hold it in position. Once the slave was out i cleaned it all up and left the rod hanging about 1cm out of the hole ishh. Worked for me

Slow and careful or you will break the cheapo crappy plastic clip Land Rover in their wisdom thought was OK.

If you do you will need to pull the gearbox off to replace (well on a 200tdi you will) and that's a lot of work. Quite surprised no one has made a better solution.

Having just try to replace the slave clutch cylinder, the push rod came away from the gearbox housing with the old cylinder. Is there anyway of fixing this without taking the gearbox out?

I managed to replace it by getting a tube that fitted over the push rod and pushed the plastic clip back over the clutch release arm. It was a bit of a fiddle, but I managed it after a while. Very satisfying when it clicked back into place. The challenge is making sure that the 'fork' in the plastic clip is going over the fork correctly. There's not a lot of room to get your fingers in to check...

j_g_uk said:

I managed to replace it by getting a tube that fitted over the push rod and pushed the plastic clip back over the clutch release arm. It was a bit of a fiddle, but I managed it after a while. Very satisfying when it clicked back into place. The challenge is making sure that the 'fork' in the plastic clip is going over the fork correctly. There's not a lot of room to get your fingers in to check...

Click to expand...

Cheers for that. I have taken the new slave cylinder back off and recovered the rod but it appears that the metal plunger and rubber seal have disappeared into the housing somewhere. I have tried fishing it out but I can’t even find it.

If you do not manage to recover and refit the fiddily plastic clip though the slave hole and end up splitting the bos to replace it, once in place put a small cable tie around the arm and plastic clip. This will hold the clip in place for next time so it is less likely to happen again. It is also worth
Removing the slave cylinder dust seal and filling it with an appropriate grease. Although aimed at protecting the piston it also keeps the pushrod clean and slippery so it comes out more easily next time.

That’s good advice thanks.
I bought an endoscope from amazon which allowed me to find the plunger and after much fiddling with both the camera and a stiff piece of wire, I managed to free it up from where it was wedged and then used the magnetic attachment on the camera to gentle pull the plunger towards the access hole. Happy days and the best £31 I ever spent.

This is the kit I bought, which is the waterproof version. It links to your phone or tablet via it’s built in Wi-fi function. This gives you the ability to take photos and video from the camera. I could have used this on many occasions over the years working on vehicles and about the house.
Hopefully this might help someone else in the same predicament.
Cheers all.