Refit, Cross Thread & Busted

Had another go Wednesday evening  for the clutch cylinder re-fit and all appeared to be going well. With a copper mallet the slave unit was eased into the mounting hole on the bell housing. Then came the awkward bit of refitting the hydraulic pipe and its union to the slave. Being very conscious of the steel union and aluminum slave, it felt I had made sure the pipe and union went in squarely, finger tight. Then on with the spanner but as it got tighter the pipe still swiveled in its position, not good as I believed I had cross threaded the joint.

Getting the slave off was difficult as before. Using a lever iron to knock out the slave cylinder, it unfortunately slipped into the bore without me realising and after removal of the slave cylinder and inspection of the bore it revealed a nasty gouge that was unrepairable. And yes, I had also begun to strip the thread in the slave cylinder.

I remained restrained and put that one down to experience therefore will have to wait until funds are available to purchase a new slave unit and new clutch pipes and fixings.

Frustrating re-fits…

I spent over 2 hours attempting the re-fit of the clutch slave cylinder back in to it’s hole in the gearbox bell-housing, and still didn’t get it back in! The only success was the black pipe, between the master and slave, was eased on to the pipe ends after warming up in hot water which went without a problem. Lets hope they are secure or tight enough to cope with the pressure. Will try the re-fit another day…

Hydraulic Cylinders Refurbished

A bit of quality time in the garage saw the final stages of the hydraulic cylinders overhaul.

Brake Master Cylinder componnets
The repair components laid out for the Brake Master Cylinder
Hydraulic cylinders
Clutch Master Cylinder (Top); Clutch Slave Cylinder (Middle Left) and Brake Master Cylinder (Bottom)

The repair kits costing about £5.00 each were fairly easy to do. A small amount of brake fluid eased the rubber seals into place nicely then the bores of the cylinders wiped with fluid to help with the  re-insertion of the pistons.

So, after nearly after a year, the refurbished clutch and brake master cylinders are ready for putting back in the car along with the clutch slave cylinder. I obtained some pipe (black in picture) that will hopefully be good enough for between the clutch master and slave unit.

Pedals; back in!

After months of taking things out,  un-seizing components, dismantling and cleaning them up they were actually going back in and in an operational state. Most satisfying was getting the clutch pedal back in which now moves beautifully up and down as it should and so does the brake pedal. The steering box was refilled with SAE90 oil, I had un-opened bottle on the shelf dating back several years.

Pedals all in
The pedal cluster all back in place and un-seized

The front under dash body work brace that ran left to right (or vice versa) was re-installed, pipes pushed back on to the heater outlets and suddenly a faint glimmer of light was on the horizon. However, my next project is proving to difficult. The removal of the brake pipes to release the brake master cylinder is proving to be tiresome. Not wishing to round off the nuts they have all been liberally soaked in WD40. With some patience I hope they’ll loosen soon.

Brake master cylinder due for removal
Brake master cylinder in process of removal, awaiting for seized up brake unions too free off.

 

 

Accelerator Pedal re-install

accelerator pedal mechanism
Accelerator mounting circled in red; awkward bolt (arrowed) to bulkhead behind heater.

A couple of spare hours, and with my little helper to hand, was enough to get the accelerator rod mechanism cleaned up and back in. The small mount (circled in red) that fixes to the brake and clutch pedal mounting had completely seized solid. It was so solidily stuck that when I initially tried to press the ‘gas’ pedal it would flex the firewall/bulkhead rather than pivot in its mounting. It took a vice, several soaks of WD40 and a week to free off and enable the small mount to rotate around the rod, freely.

The rod was treated to a clean up by wire brush and two grades of wet and dry then a coating of sprayed on grease to keep things lubricated and clean-ish. It was the first time this piece of the car had ever been removed in 46 years, evidence being the over spray on the special rubber grommet on the firewall, which will need replacing.

drivers side footwell
Interior drivers side footwell with accelerator pedal (silver rod) re-installed. Brake and clutch pedals yet to be put back in

Installation was reverse of the removal, just less of the cursing as the youngster was present. The heater proved to be equally tricky to get back in as it was quite heavy to lever upwards and be aligned with it’s mounting holes for the bolts to go in. Next step, will be the re-install of the clutch and brake pedals.

Foot pedals, more to come out…

Brake and clutch pedals assembled on to the mounting and all move freely

The clutch and brake pedals were re-attached to their mountings and were all moving freely as they should be. The next task was to take out the accelerator pedal as that has seized on its pivot point.

Easier said than done. To remove the accelerator pedal assembly, the heater matrix had to be released from it’s mountings. To move the heater matrix away from it’s mountings the 1″ square bracing under the dash board, which formed part of the parcel shelf  that ran the width of the car, had to be removed. Once it had been removed, the heater would only move another inch or so, due to other under dash items getting in the way. With access to the tricky bolt on the bulk head (first one was accessible in the engine bay) now made easier, it was still lots of 1/8th turns of a spanner to undo. Once the accelerator mount bracket to the bulk head was removed, it was twisting and turning the assembly every which way one could to extract. Eventually it came out and sprayed with WD40 and left soaking to loosen the pivot point.

Unseizing the clutch (part 3)

The clutch pedal was very stiff and wouldn’t move under gravity and brake pedal was going the same way. A week ago, I attempted to remove the whole pedal mounting assembly, only to find that a bracket on the steering column was in the way. I managed to remove the pedals, the clutch one being more difficult which also left the copper sleeve on the pivot spindle.

With my little helper (soon to be 10 son), we unbolted the steering column support mounts and undid the four bolts mounting the steering shaft to the steering box. Though a load of oil came out of the steering box, it enabled the column to be turned thus moving the column mounting bracket out of the way. The pedal mount bracket was then extracted after the brake master cylinder bolts and one other bolt were removed from the bulk head.

Clutch and Brake pedal mounting bracket dismantled and part way through a clean up

With the bracket removed, the clutch pedal was eased back on and with some luck or patience, the copper collar came off too with lots of twisting, wiggling and gentle prising off.

The spindle that the copper collars and pedals mounted onto were fairly corroded and dirty, so out with the variable speed drill, a flexible cord with a chuck on the end and small grinding bits (bit like a Dremel but bigger). A vice to hold the bracket and they came up nice and clean with the pedals now freely moving on their spindles.

The little movie (mp4) will hopefully demonstrate how and what was used to clean the spindles.

Unseizing the clutch (part 2)

Finally did it, I got the slave cylinder off, you know, the one mounted on the bellhousing. After spending 2-3 hours tussling with various tools in the morning I decided to stop and have a break.

After lunch I resumed, jacked the car up a bit more, which enabled the front wheel to be turned allowing more room to manoeuvre. Starting with the coil spring clamps I manged to get a grip on the front cross member, the mole grips helping keep the clamp in place and the push rod end of the slave. A few turns on the clamp’s bolt was enough to get things moving. From there on it was a hammer on the ball joint splitter tool and then a lever iron to drive the slave through its mounting hole.

Next: freeing up of the clutch pedal.

Unseizing the clutch (part 1)

After some advice from the Rods ‘n’ Sods forum, on Saturday (19th) I removed (wrestled with) the clutch fluid reservoir to inspect the extent of seizure. The photos may indicate the level of corrosion but don’t illustrate the fact that the reservoir was dry upon removal.

I had to cut the fluid pipe to remove it from the engine bay. I then attempted to take off the slave cylinder mounted on the engine block. I got as far as removing the circlip before spraying the unit in WD40 to help the removal of that at a later date.