The engine was mounted, the tranny in, the drive line all in place. Then the McLeod hydraulic clutch throw out bearing leaked. This has happened three times over the about 15 years the car has been on the road. Each time was after sitting for a while. Never had a problem with it when I drove it regularly – say once a week. But leave it over the winter months and in the first week of driving it the bearing would leak out and I’d have no clutch.
I’m finished with it, no more rebuilds for you. I checked around the MG Experience and a few other places and took a closer look at Graham Creswicks setup. Seems I’m not alone with this problem. A couple helpful emails back and forth and the HTOB (Hydraulic Throw Out Bearing) is history for me. Too bad, it wasn’t a cheap part.
One of the big pains is removing the transmission before required removing the engine. So when the HTOB leaked you had to remove the engine, the transmission, replace a $1 O-ring and put it all together again. Ugh. So this time with the t5 it’s setup so the transmission can be removed without removing the engine:
The wet looking stuff is the Eastwood body undercoating.
I had to get a clutch fork, the pivot ball and a Pull hydraulic cylinder. I found it at Speedway Motors. They have a lot of non-run of the mill car parts for special installations. I also saw some banjo bolts and thought that would be a great way to mount the cylinder. Here’s a pic of the stuff before installation:
You can see that all it took to mount it to the T5 was a simple L bracket. Here’s a pic of what the positioning will be:
Dan has also worked out using a banjo bolt at the front – that will keep the cylinder floating so there will be as little side pressures as possible on the cylinder seal – should prolong the life.
Hi I am redoing my clutch setup and appreciate your photos. How did the new master work? Can you supply the part number or application? Thanks, Mike Barnes
Mike – I know your post is old, I was a way a couple weeks and when I got back I couldn’t find the piece of paper I wrote down what car the master cylinder was from. But last night I found the receipt. I bought it from Advance Auto Parts and it is item number 39754. I did a search on google to find it and it comes up at a few places, including Advanced Auto. I paid $23. for it but I see on Amazon it’s as low as $14.
The slave cylinder was from SpeedwayMotors.com. Part #556NP102U. The listing is a UNIVERSAL PULL TYPE SLAVE CYLINDER, 7/8″.
So I ended up with a 5/8″ bore master to a 7/8″ bore slave. The typical setup is a 3/4″ master and slave.
It made a big difference. The clutch is now what I would consider much closer to normal, a bit on the high side, but much more comfortable. With the 3/4″ setup is was way to hard, sitting at a light was a real pain. I know some recommend not keeping your foot on the clutch at the light but I’ve done it that way forever and only replaced a throwout bearing once and that was years ago.
I’ve added some pics in other posts that show the setup. We did have to grind down the length of the pivot arm so everything fit in the tranny tunnel. That’s what made the clutch hard to begin with – the old fulcrum length math thingy came into play.
And the new master is tilted a bit – if you look at it the mounting holes are not perpendicular with the reservoir. I had to drill a couple new holes in the master cylinder mounting box. It’s still tilted a bit, but not enough to make bother anything.
leon …
Leon, Thanks for the response. I think I am going to follow your lead. Regards, Mike