Ok I'm having a nightmare with this.

I have bled it through with new fluid.

I have pumped the pedal while pressure bleeding.

I have taken the slave off it's mount and bled it that way.

I have compressed the slave while pressure bleeding to get the air out.

I have bled all the unions.

At 5.00pm I had a soft pedal and it wouldn't go in gear. At 8.00pm I have 1/2" pedal travel before the clutch engages. So it goes in gear but as soon as it wears at all I will be stuck.

I measured the slave fully extended from tip to toe and it is 180mm. At rest it is 145mm. When the clutch pedal is fully depressed it is 160mm. So only 15mm of travel. Is this normal??

Please help!

I even slotted the holes on the clutch mount where it bolts to the gearbox. This didn't seem to help at all.

I should add before I removed the pedal box that led to all this trouble I never had a high biting point but it was better than this.

I think you need to bleed the master cylinder on its own if you have had the pedal box out etc, I had to bleed my master seperatley due to it being vertical with my latest clutch setup.

Disconnect the line at the master cylinder, bleed just the master cylinder on its own, normal up down pump action, on mine the fittings are the same as the bleed nipples so I use a nipple and short hose with a one way valve fitted in bleed tube into a jar.

This will bleed the master get this free of air.

then reconncet the line to the slave then bleed the slave as normal.

open nipple, down, close, up, open, down etc.

then once a nice clear air bubble free, pedal down and crack the nipple therby letting the clutch bleed just the cylinder. this step is not always neede tho only on really difficult systems.

That should def give an air free system.

West

Just to add

I have never used a pressure bleed on my car , have used one once and was never impressed, and was shocked at the poor pedal on the brakes, hence I stick to the old up down open close nipple method and an assitant if needed, and i have always got the best results like this,

only issue doing it like this is making sure the mastercylinder never reaches empty allowing air into the system.

Fully bleeding a fully adjustable pedal [i.e one with a balance bar] box can be a right pain too. and usually needs a particular method to bleed especially if the system has been totally drained.

West

Cheers West.


I will have another go tomorrow.

I use a Mity-Vac to pull fluid through an empty system initially but I always do the final bleeding manually as West described.

Have a look at the bracket that the slave cylinder is bolted too when someone is pressing the clutch pedal.
You might need to strengthen the bracket.

Bob S.

I have noticed a bit of movement in the slave bracket.

In the end I removed the cluch pedal, put a saw cut up behind the hole that the master cylinder connects through, bent it up by about 5mm then re welded it.

The clutch now has more travel and feels smoother (better angle?). The pedal is ever so slightly higher, but that has been no problem.

Roger, you do not say which engine you are using, it won't be the 1.4 as that was cable. Beware if you are using a K3 1.8vvc 160ps.
There is more than one version of the 1.8vvc. We got a new one from a contact in Birmingham, there were 2 engines available, GTM (Peter & Paddy) bought one for their first Spyder, it was a MG 200/400 series with cable clutch, we bought the other thinking it was from the MGF, we had trouble with the clutch slave cylinder, it would not operate the clutch properly. We had to fit an extension to the slave cylinder rod. About a year later we had troulble starting the Libra & started looking for all sorts of problems, at this stage we discovered that this K3 engine was not from an MG but one designed to fit in the Lotus Elise. Fuel control valves etc were different. Then we discovered that the problem was the battery, the cranking current was not enough. We bought a new battery & all was well.
Barry, www.gtmoc.co.uk now also www.dadbarry70.co.uk.