Not the start of the driving season ...

With February behind us, the mandatory three month hibernation for my TR7's is over for another year. And because I am enjoying a short holiday the plan was to give 't Kreng a short check up in the morning, and take her for a ride in the afternoon. All under the pretence of preparing for the first event of the  year "De Nacht van het Oosten" just over a week away.

As the car had behaved rather well last time I drove her I didn't expect much wrong. My main worry were the front bearings but they turned out to be OK. So I changed my attention to the fluid levels; coolant and brakes were up to their normal level. Not so for the clutch fluid. After removing the cap I was greeted by a rather empty reservoir ...

A quick inspection under the bonnet and in the interior with a small torch, showed that the master cylinder had no visible signs of any leaks. Safe to assume the leak was elsewhere. And there is not much else on the car were clutch fluid can leak, the slave cylinder. As this cylinder (as usual) was covered in all sorts of oily muck it was impossible to say whether it was leaking or not. So only one way to find out. And that is by removing it. With the two mounting bolts removed I carefully took the slave cylinder of (as in not to dislodge the push rod). Once free of the push rod the damage immediately became clear as a fair amount of fluid spilled out through the opening of the dirt cover ...

Initial plan was to use some new seals to rebuild the slave cylinder, but whilst searching for the correct seals I found two reconditioned slave cylinders in the same box. So I opted for replacing instead! Sadly it wasn't as straight forward as that. With everything cleaned and the new slave cylinder firmly in place I found out that the connecting hole for the flexible hose was deeper in comparison to the old cylinder. As a result of which I couldn't fully tighten the connector. At that time I remembered that the guy who made the flex hoses for me many years ago also supplied some copper seals, just in case. Glad that I remembered where I stored them.

Sadly there was nobody around to help with bleeding the clutch so with everything connected up it was time to store the tools and pull the cover back over the car. And time for a closer look at the leaking slave cylinder. Glad I made the decision I did, as there are some score marks on the piston the inside of the old cylinder has some patches of rust and scoring of the bore ...

Hopefully back on the road soon!