The 'E' Type Forum

Just received this email:

"Hi David.
I am on holiday in Whitby in the E-Type and the slave cylinder for the clutch has completely failed. Do you have any contacts in this area as I am staying here until Wednesday when I am supposed to drive the car back to Dover. I could do the work myself if I could find someone with a lift and presumably could get a new slave cylinder sent to me for Tuesday. I am in the E-Type Club as well as in the JEC and my mobile number is 07833317933. I hope you can help

Kind regards
David "

Can anyone in the area offer assistance? I have suggested he contacts SNGB who will overnight a new slave, start the car in 2nd to get mobile and there is a classic car garage in Whitby who should be able to help - Meadowfields Garage. Anything else we can do? Car is 1968 S1.

If he is a member of any of the large motoring organisations, particularly RAC or AA, I would have thought that one of their mobiles would have been able to fix this . They probably carry a range of seals on the van, and almost certainly will know where to lay hands on them , even out of hours!

Sadly Chris if the cylinder has failed the chances of an RAC or AA etc patrol having the seals to fix are approximately nil. They may carry spares for the kinds of cars they see frequently but how often will a patrol man be called to an e type in distress? Probably once in a blue moon. I also doubt they will be willing to work under the car. When my MGB suffered the same fate it was a flat bed home. I agree with David. If you are in Whitby for a few days call Dave Manners or SNGB first thing Monday and get them to courier a replacement cylinder to you for Tuesday. Then get the RAC etc to recover you to a local garage with a four post lift. Any competent mechanic should be able to fit the new one and get you on your way.

How does the start the car in 2nd gear work......ok if its a push start but am i missing something....Steve

Anything else we can do?

Looking on the "world map of E types" I see there are three members living approximately 30-40 miles from Whitby.
Maybe they would be willing to help if contacted

mgcjag wrote:How does the start the car in 2nd gear work......ok if its a push start but am i missing something....Steve

Put the car in second, crank the starter and off you go. Match the revs and you should be able to get another gear. The clutch is still engaged you just can't release it if the slave or master cylinder goes. It's when you have to stop the fun starts. Probably an absolute last resort if the roads are quiet.

Simon

You're about 300 miles away from me but here are a couple of ideas; hydraulic seals don't usually fail suddenly. My guess is it's been leaking for a while & you've just run out of fluid. If you can get a seal, just change the seal. If you can get a new cylinder, I would take the piston & seal out & just swap that - much quicker & easier than changing the whole cylinder.
But before I did ANY of those things I would pop into the nearest convenience store & buy a bottle of olive oil. It is thicker (sorry, more viscous) than brake fluid. Fill the system up with that & bleed it through & it will probably last you quite a while. If you're lucky it may not even need bleeding - just pump like crazy until you get a pedal. Keep the bottle in the car & top up as necessary.
I tried a similar trick when an old Peugeot my wife was driving ran out of brake fluid about ten miles from home on a hot summer's day. I told her to do what I just described, but she is not one for following instructions very well, and she took it upon herself to go into the nearest chippy & use chip fat instead of olive oil. It did the trick & got her home, but when the weather cooled, there was a layer of soldified fat floating on top of the reservoir which took a bit of getting rid of. Women!

Like the olive oil idea Hugo. Agree that the seals usually just weep and it seeps away although in my mg incident mine did just burst and dump all the fluid on a chaps driveway...huge pool under the car. We tried topping up but it just ran straight through..

Heard of moveing the car useing the starter.......never heard that the engine would actually fire and start when in second....anyone actually done it on an E type...Steve

Yes it's simple enough. Might shake the exhaust about a bit & probably won't do your engine mountings a lot of good either. I would have thought second might be a bit high to pull away though? In the good old days of crash gearboxes it was easy to drive without a clutch - American truckers still do - but synchromesh makes it more difficult. And you have to learn to pace yourself so you don't have to stop at lights etc!

When my slave cylinder went , i walked to a nearby petrol station, bought some fluid and drove home with minimal gearchanges. Luckily i was only 5 miles from home but it may be enough to get you to a local garage.

I just spoke to our stranded friend - he has no access to the internet right now so won't see anything on here. His car is a Series 1.5 1968 US import. Does anybody know what slave cylinder that should have? More to the point, are the slave cylinder bores all the same?

I agree that on Monday to contact SNGB - or other well known "usuals" - as they will overnight a replacement slave cylinder. I'm not sure if David specified what Series E Type he has, but if it a Series 1, make sure the correct one is ordered as there is a long one and a shorter one.
Once you can get access under the car, the slave is only located by two nuts and is easy to remove.
I have previously told the tale of my slave cylinder failing in Laon in France and how I drove the car back to the Cherbourg ferry and from Dover to the Portsmouth ferry and finally home on the Isle of Wight - all without a clutch. By choosing a motorway route to reduce the need to stop - which in the event just needs the car knocking out of gear - by starting the car in 1st gear, by matching revs, once on the move there is no need for a clutch to engage the gears.

As time is on David's side, he will get a replacement in time and just needs a facility to get access under the car to fit it. In my case, the slave failed on arrival at the event in Laon, but a trip to the local Carrefour to buy a 3 Euro bicycle puncture repair kit provided me a suitable small round patch - which when the holed 7/8 inch diameter seal was cleaned using my wife's nail varnish remover - when applied to the damaged seal, lasted the whole weekend sprinting around the town. It only failed just as we left on the last day.
I now carry a spare 7/8 seal - and others for all my hydraulic cylinders - which have now been sleeved in stainless steel to prevent future corrosion. Often the damage is caused by the seal passing its usual operating limit in the bore when getting hot and being "tripped" by the rough corroded part of the bore in standard unlined bare metal cylinders of dubious quality.
Trust all gets sorted - but with a Series 1, order the right part !
Regards,
Dave

Footnote :- just seen my post overlapped Hugo's and we now know it is a Series 1.5, but my comments still stand and will hopefully help. My very late Series 1 uses the short Clutch Slave with a 7/8 inch internal seal, so I would expect David's Series 1.5 Slave to be more likely to have the short version, rather than the earlier longer one. It is important to get the correct cylinder as it must match the pushrod that is fitted.

That damage to the seal normally occurs when people bleed the brakes and push the pedal all the way down, so the master cylinder piston travels in 'rough' parts of the bore that it never normally sees. You don't normally see it with clutch cylinders as they always move through their full travel.
I spoke to the guy and he says he "can't" change gear without a clutch. I told him it's just a question of matching the revs, but it is tricky & he obviously hasn't done it before.
My slave cylinder is here in one of my many cardboard boxes - I was hoping that I could pop the piston & seal out & put it in a jiffy bag for him - but the piston is stuck in the bore & won't even come out with an air line.

Hugo wrote:but the piston is stuck in the bore & won't even come out with an air line.

Take a brass brake line fitting and tap it to take a grease zerk. If the piston will come out at all this will get it out.

Hugo,
You are obviously a good guy and really trying to help David. I would not send him the Piston, Seal and Cup Filler which fits inside the rubber cup seal, without knowing the condition of David's old Clutch slave bore, which is a highly likely culprit in this situation.
David has time tomorrow - Monday - to order and recieve the replacement Slave assembly on Tuesday and to fit the whole new complete part without having to split the old one and fit parts. The seal can be hard to remove and when I did mine in France in the local Carrefour tyre service centre, my helpful French guys finally managed to blast the various parts out with their airline - leaving me to scrabble around their workshop to find the scattered parts.
If nothing else David's predicament should help others become aware of this issue - which is a potential car stopper, but easily fixed. Know what Slave you have fitted and if on a long trip, take a spare seal - the size of a £1 coin - and ideally once a new unit is fitted, get the old cylinder re-sleeved with a stainless bore to be kept as a spare. Leave the spare empty as people like Hugo find that if a standard assembled unit left off the car in storage, the bore can corrode with lack of lubrication making it useless in the future and make disassembly very difficult.
The Imperial Cup seals - such as 7/8 or 3/4 inch - were supplied in the hydraulics used throughout the British motoring industry and used by many manufacturers, so at a worst case if stuck overseas just source a cup seal of the correct diameter once the bore is known.
Regards,
Dave

I took my slave cylinder off the car with no intention of re0using it, otherwise I'd have taken more care. If I'd been able to get it out it might at least have got our friend home, on the basis that a bird in the hand etc. Otherwise I can see him phoning round tomorrow morning and Murphy's law says everybody will be out of stock and that's another day lost.
My coaches have bog-standard 3/4" clutch master cylinders fitted which for some reason have become unobtainable from all the commercial suppliers. Turns out they're exactly the same as the old 'Auntie' Rovers and, would you believe, the E Type!

SNGB show C29801 "in stock".

A failing clutch slave was one of my first introductions to e type motoring about 40 years ago.
I was with my brother in law in his 3.8 ots, he was to drop me off near my then home. He announced that the clutch pedal had gone and I would have to jump out whilst he slowed to walking pace.
Seemed a fine idea so we planned the move. Top down and out I went. Little did I know that my antics of leaping out of a moving car split the seem if my trousers down the back from belt line all the way.

I walked blissful home unaware of my visual predicament !

I received a text from our stranded friend yesterday (Monday) to say that he was back on the road already, having found a 7/8" seal in a local garage that was "like Steptoe's yard". Good work.