Clutch woes

[garryc]

Getting ltwt out of garage. Clutch pedal went straight down to floor. Clutch fluid leaking out of drain hole in bell housing. No drive at all. Can move between gears with engine running. No issues at all beforehand.

It’s an r380/300 tdi installation.

Any ideas?

Thank you

[western]

Dead slave cylinder. 

[smallfry]

Sounds like it, but to go through the gears with engine running and no drive, the cylinder must have jammed somehow ? Piston come out of bore somehow ? Release fork broken/bent/jammed ? Can only guess.

Never had this happen on anything before, normally you just have no clutch.

[garryc]

As western diagnosed, dead slave cylinder. Replaced it today. It needs further bleeding as it’s like an on/off switch at the moment and loads of air bubbles still coming through bleed nipple. But much better than stripping the gearbox out. Thanks for all the kind assistance. Really appreciate it. I feared we wouldn’t be able to get to the LRO show at Peterborough.

[western]

Have you got the bleed screw at the top, otherwise you will never get any trapped air out & never get a good pedal.

[garryc]

No. I’ve got it at the bottom. Easier access and laziness. Thank you for advice I’ll flick it other way up tomorrow.

[Gazzar]

You can fit a remote bleed screw, so correct AND lazy. Standard parts.

[garryc]

So let me start off saying thank you as ever for the kind support on this forum. It’s really appreciated.

As an update, new slave cylinder blew within 100 yds of the house.

To give a bit more background and detail the setup up is;

300tdi mated to r380 via a stumpy bell housing. R380 has short pinion kit fitted by Ashcroft Transmissions who I have always found exceptionally helpful. The pushrod is 65mm as advised on many posts. Slipper pads are standard. Clutch fork is heavy duty one. It had a brand new clutch kit fitted; again heavy duty

The truck has been a garage queen for a number of years whilst I’ve been finishing off jobs on her. And it’s been in and out of the garage regularly under her own steam until a week ago when for no obvious reason the slave cylinder blew the rubber end cap off and drained itself via the drain hole in the bell housing. Prior to that pedal was nice and felt normal.

I replaced the slave cylinder but on bleeding it (once I had it the right way up - thanks western) the pedal was much, much firmer and took a conscious effort to press down to the floor. And the clutch bite point was almost at top of pedal travel. Previously it bit about half way up.

I drive it out the garage, left it idling for a minute, drive it forwards and backwards about three times outside the house before heading off down the road. As I selected second gear, the pedal went  all the way to the floor and I lost drive again. As with the first occasion I can move the gear lever through all gears with engine running which suggests clutch plate is not in contact with the fly wheel. Removed slave cylinder and found the same result. Rubber cap blown off as before. Re-assembled slave (hopeful as ever) re-fitted it and it blew whilst bleeding. Pedal went very firm and then it just blew.

And that’s where I’m at. Before I have to take the box out and undo all the work I’ve done on floors, seat box, seats etc, has anyone any ideas? Particularly as I’ve now got only one weekend left to work on her before Peterborough show.

As ever, thank you for your kind assistance.

[western]

Reckon you have the wrong pushrod, [I am aware you have a 300tdi] 

my 200tdi with a stumpy R380 needs pushrod FTC4229 & slave cylinder FRC8531 or 591231, 

a 300TDi with the long clutch housing R380 uses pushrod FTC3912& Slave cylinder FTC3911

HTH 

another thought which release bearing are you sing, a stumpy R380 needs UTJ100210