Clutch drama

Clutch drama

Author
Discussion

keithyboy

Original Poster:

1,940 posts

271 months

Sunday 3rd March 2002
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Just took the V8S out for a quick squirt and five miles or so down the road on a dual carriageway, just about to change up into fourth and guess what! . . . the clutch pedal goes solid on me - no downward movement at all - I'm stuck in third with a roundabout approaching fast and luckily little traffic around - I manage to take the roundabout in third - (good torquey (sp?) cars these) and consider the options (i) gamble and try to get home in third or (ii) drive into a layby, put it in neutral and wait for a tow home! I decided on the first and luckily made it home o.k. - plenty of forward planning and no hold ups at all No time tonight for an investigation but a quick look reveals no significant fluid loss from the clutch reservoir, although the level's down a bit and no apparent leaks. It'll have to wait 'til next weekend now. Any ideas? - a pint at the S meeting to the first guessing the cause!

Dave_H

996 posts

284 months

Sunday 3rd March 2002
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Hi Keith,

The only time I've experienced a clutch pedal going solid on my S was when we were refitting the clutch slave cylinder and just before bleeding the clutch, the pedal went totally solid. After investigation it was the clutch slave cylinder that for no apparent reason had "jammed"

In the end we took the slave cylinder off and "freed" it off on the bench (just took it apart and put back together again)

It never did, or has since showed signs of fluid leakage - So not sure what that was all about?

May not help you, but that's my only experience of it.

Cheers,

Dave.

johno

8,427 posts

283 months

Sunday 3rd March 2002
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Reckon Dave deserves the pint !!

Effectively there only a few things that it could be.

1 - Master cylinder has ceased.

2 - Slave cylinder has ceased

3 - Pedal mechanism has ceased for some reason.

4 - Pipe between Master and Slave cylinder is blocked.

Any of the above are fairly simple to investigate and solve. I doubt it is anything internal like the clutch release bearing or release arm as you probably would still have pedal movement.

With the angle of the pedal travel into the cylinder it is surprising you don't hear more of this kind of incident.

Best of luck.

Cheers

Mark

LeeBee

773 posts

285 months

Sunday 3rd March 2002
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Funny that, this happened on my S2 a few weeks ago and has done so in the past.The first time it happened the clutch arm had jammed due to the rubber gaiter getting tangled up in the hole, this time though the slave cylinder had completly jammed solid, lucky I had a nice new shiny one in my workshop

Cheers

LeeBee