MGB Clutch

[Matt of the Vivas]

My relaxing sunday afternoon task:



One 1977 MGB Roadster, complete with rubber bumpers and a very knackered clutch. It slipped, it dragged, it was noisy. Basically think of a clutch fault and it had it. Plus an oil leak. And a dripping clutch slave... And an exhaust blow from the manifold...



Engine out on these to do the clutch - so the radiator and kenlowe fan are the first to go...



... followed by the alternator, bonnet, and then disconnection of the oil cooler pipes, various wires and cables, fuel line, heater hoses.... also the bell housing bolts came out now. Note the aftermarket accessory Nigel is starting to restrict access to the engine bay so...



... time to go underneath and remove the exhaust, earth strap.....



... and starter. Finally the engine mounts are undone....



.... and the engine is trussed up and plucked out....



... leaving a large hole.




Knackered clutch thrust - it should be about twice as thick. The horrible mess is a mixture of oil and carbon from the thrust pad - it all needed cleaning out. Helpfully, Nigel disappeared at this point, after finding me a rag and some brake cleaner - his comments "Your a tart, you like cleaning, clean it".



An unpleasant half hour of scraping and degreasing, made more unpleasant by me leaning against the washer bottle bag, which spewed water everywhere leaving me with a wet arse.
Still, it cleaned up ok, then I could start playing with....


....the engine. 1800cc B series - heavy. And oily. It needs a rear main oil seal, tappet chest cover gaskets and sump gasket before it goes back in. And a good clean - i wonder who will be doing that?



Clutch removed, back plate and main seal removed.



Old clutch - not that worn but very very oily, so its no good.



Stress crack in the engine mount bracket - this needs to be welded before it goes back.

My task tomorrow is to find some parts - we need a 3 piece clutch set, 2 engine mounts, a clutch slave, rear main oil seal, tappet chest cover gaskets, and a sump gasket. i also need to find out if the gearbox nose seal is replaceable without stripping the box - and if it is one of them too.

More when we put it back together..

Matt.

[Matt of the Vivas]

More progress:


New clutch and gaskets fitted to engine


Cracked engine mount welded


New release bearing and nose seal


Steering rack removed, as the steering shaft prevents access to the lower engine mounting nut - wonderful design...


Not a complete waste of time, as the cracked track rod end gaitors could be replaced at the same time


Even with access to the nuts, heat was needed to release them....


...finally got the new mounts fitted and the rack remounted.


Last job on the engine was to replace the exhaust manifold studs - they needed a lot of heat to get them out.


Then it turned out the new studs were the wrong thread, so we had to retap the manifold to take modern M8 studs - not ideal but it worked.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Engine being lowered back in


Engine finally sat back on its mounts - it was a complete bastard to get lined up with the gearbox, it just would not mate... got there eventually though.


Everything reconnected, engine oil in, coolant in, gearoil in, bleed the clutch.... err no. Seems the poor master cylinder could not take the strain of being bled and failed. So that will need to be replaced before the car is returned to its owner. We did have it running for a while and it sounds lovely now (the exhaust studs being stripped before created a nasty blow) and there are no oil or water leaks, so we are getting there...

[Matt of the Vivas]

Clutch master cylinder replaced. Clutch bled up ok, clutch worked.... until the clutch hose burst :lol:
Another part to add to the list.
This car does not want to be fixed..

[Matt of the Vivas]

Finally got this finished today.
I turned up at my mates house with a new clutch hose, confident that an hour tops would see it fitted, bled, and us whizzing down the road for a bacon bap shaped reward.
Within an hour, we did indeed have it fitted, bled, and ready for a road test. Start it up, ease the clutch up and CLUNK GRIND we have no clutch again :evil:
Externally everything looked ok, so the engine had to come back out again. The only comfort to this was that as the engine had only been fitted for 3 days nothing had seized up yet, and everything came apart easily. An hour later, we had the engine out and on the floor again, and the stupid mistake was staring us in the face - the clutch arm was fitted back to front, with the cupped part to hold the release bearing pointing outwards instead of inwards - as soon as the clutch was depressed the release bearing jumped out of the arm.

If you look closely at these pictures you can just about make it out:



A very stupid mistake - and my only defence is that I did not fit the arm back, Nigel did... I should have spotted the error though.
With the engine back in and everything reconnected the clutch was fine - nice and smooth, all faults fixed - but i think im going to have nightmares about Pageant Blue MGBs for a long while...


AARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

Matt.