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.