Oil contaminated clutch, any hope?

[ridds]

Over filled the gearbox on a Seat Ibiza last weekend and the clutch started slipping during the week. Assume oil has passed down the clutch situation rod and gotten onto the friction disc and pressure plate.

I've drained the oil down and hosed some brake cleaner through the bell housing but it is still slipping. Next thing was to release the clutch and flush through again.

The clutch is 8k miles old so I'm loathed to change it.

Any chance it will clean up? It's only slipping a very small amount around peak torque currently.

[Sf_Manta]

Providing the clutch material hasn't completely soaked in oil, it'll burn it off after a bit, or should do.
Friend of mine used to have to free clutches on HGV's and used WD40 to get them to unstick, though would end up slipping a little till the clutch burned off the oil and dried out

[Steve_D]

In my experience it will slip, burn and glaze the centre plate = no clutch.

If you took it out now you could boil it in caustic soda to get the oil out but having spent the time getting the 'box of you may as well fit a new plate.

Steve

[Kitchski]

I had a car some years ago (Saxo I think it was) where I changed the clutch on my driveway and probably overdid it with copper grease on the sleeve the release bearing slides along. Some must have sprayed up onto the clutch plate, because 2weeks later it started slipping if you applied the full-fat 75bhp from the 1.4 powerhouse.

Was gutted as I planned to sell the car. Took the TDC sensor out, emptied a can of carb cleaner onto the clutch, never slipped again

I suspect I was lucky!

[ridds]

Update on this.

After fitting the new clutch, which didn't want to disengage correctly. Then re-fitment of the cleaned up old clutch the problem re-surfaced.

Checked the new clutch was the only one for the car (which it was) I attempted to refit it.

This showed further oil contamination but NOT from the transmission.

I traced it back to a leaking sump gasket which due to the design of the reverse flywheel on this setup allowed oil to contaminate the side of the friction disc closest to the gearbox!

Put it all back together with the new clutch which still failed to disengage correctly so spent some time adjusting the release fork to allow sufficient disengagement.

BUT, the sump on the diesel engine WILL NOT come off without the flywheel being removed! arse...

Dropped the sump enough to run a rag around the seal to remove any muck and gave it a good tweak up when re-fitting. It now appears to be fixed!!!

So much for cheap runabouts!

[Classic Grad 98]

P.S I was about to suggest the 'Coka-Cola in the bellhousing' bodge, which I heard about recently. Anyone else heard of this?

[ridds]

Do I need to ask what that entails or is it self explanitory!

Open 2 litre bottle of coke.
Pour in bell housing
Clutch fixed!

[Classic Grad 98]

Chap who told me about it races a historic MG (early '50s IIRC). He's also very mechanically handy, doing restorations and supporting our Caterham race club. He told me last weekend at Rockingham that he once 'Fixed' a clutch contaminated from a leaking input shaft seal, by emptying a couple of cans of cola into the bellhousing! He completed a competitive race this way!
A quick web search reveals it's not a unique story by any means...