Braided Hoses

I have taken delivery of all new braided stainless steel hydraulic hoses to replace the standard rubber ones. These will replace the clutch slave cylinder hose plus the 4 outboard brake hoses. They are made using BrakeQuip equipment and are clear PVC covered with the correct ADR markings. The photo to the right shows a comparison of the old black rubber hose and the new ones. I had always intended on replacing them at some point, just not this early. Professional inspection of the blown factory clutch hose showed that it had barely been crimped with only about half a millimetre of bite on the end of the rubber hose. I feel much more comfortable with all new hoses on the car.

So I have refitted the new clutch hose to the CSC, reattached the gearbox to the engine, and put the engine back into the engine bay (without installing it). I have attached the clutch line to the master cylinder, and bled it. I got a good clean stream of fluid after only 4 cycles. Better yet, the pedal has a nice feel, and I can see the CSC inside the bell housing actuating the pressure plate from the moment the clutch pedal is engaged. I will let it sit overnight to make sure there are no leaks from the CSC (where fluid comes out the bottom of the bell housing). Assuming no problems appear overnight I can properly reinstall the motor, hopefully for the last time.


Many thanks to Greg at Redback Motorsport of Kirrawee for sorting the new hoses. Its brilliant to have such a great motorsport shop so close to home, with people so knowledgeable and keen to help! 

Broken Clutch Hose

After the clutch hose blew out, I have decided to replace all the stock rubber hydraulic hoses on the car with stainless steel braided lines. This means removing the outboard lines to the front and rear brakes, as well as removing the remaining clutch coupling which was still attached to the CSC in the bell housing (which means removing the engine and gearbox ...... again!). This photo (pardon the hand) shows what's left of the hose coupling that was in the bell housing. The hose let go from the top. The new ones are coming from Redback Motorsport at Kirrawee.

At least with new braided hoses on all hydraulic lines I will never be worrying about this sort of problem occurring as I head into a corner deep under brakes!

Clutch

I have had so much fun with leaking fluids I thought I would see what other liquid I could put in the car in the state I have it, before I did more work on the engine (in case it needed to come out....again). The hydraulic clutch is an easy enough item to tick off. So I made a temporarily mount for the reservoirs (these can't be permanently mounted until the scuttle goes back on), tightened the lines on the master cylinder and connected the hose from the master cylinder to the Concentric Slave Cylinder in the bell housing). After I did all that, I topped up the reservoir  with DOT4+, put the bleed kit on, and opened the bleeder. After a little bit of pedal pumping, the reservoir level is going down, however there is nothing flowing into the bleed bottle?!?!. A quick glance under the car tells me that the large developing pool of fluid means I have a leak in the CSC. Looking in through the top of the bell housing I can see fluid pouring out the back of the CSC, which is odd given that its a sealed unit. So out comes the engine and gearbox again (3rd time). 

When I pull the CSC out of the bell housing, its evident that I have misunderstood the CSC mounting and the measurements from the thrust bearing to the pressure plate, as I have mounted my spacers between the CSC and the mounting plate, rather than behind the mounting plate. This means there was no backing to the CSC, so once it loaded up against the pressure plate, it popped the back of the CSC off hence the leak under no pressure. To prove this theory, I remounted the CSC directly onto the mounting plate (as seen on the right), remeasured the take up spacing (seems OK), and the put the gearbox back in the engine bay and reconnected the clutch hose. Adding some pressure to this configuration, there were no leaks.....about now I start making a few phone calls to confirm this new knowledge, and its confirmed that this mounting should work. So I reassembled the gearbox onto the engine, and then reinstalled the engine and gearbox (4th time). I reconnected the lines and reservoir, attached the bleed kit. As I start to add pressure and open the bleeder, I get a good stream of bubbles and fluid into my bleed bottle. About 5 more minutes of this and I had reasonable pressure and pedal feel, and no more bubbles. So I detached the bleed kit and jumped in to feel what the clutch pedal felt like. Now here is where its gets a bit grey as I don't know exactly how it should feel. It doesn't seem to have to much feel and I don't get a lot of pressure until its half way through its stroke, and then its not returning the pedal completely. It must have had pressure though as on the 5th stroke of the pedal, the hose coupling blew apart in the bell housing #$%@!!!! 


So I guess what I will do now is just pop the engine and gearbox out again, and fit a braided hose before bleeding the clutch again. I will also need to ensure I have enough adjustment in the CSC spring to get a reasonable take up point.

Master Cylinders

During the week, the master cylinders, reservoirs and hydraulic lines arrived. My mate Steve (Shireman on OzClubbies) put together the reservoirs and mounted them in their bracket, while I fitted the cylinders above the pedal box. A bit of wrangling with circlips and we had all the cylinders mounted. We then ran the first set of lines down to the distribution plate in the engine bay, and connected up the front and rear brake circuits. the clutch line will be finished once the engine and transmission goes in. The lines to the reservoirs will be connected once the reservoirs are mounted on the scuttle (which is currently off for wiring).