Hi all, I am a new member here and this is the first time I have blogged about a car or anything else for that matter, and have been reading some of the posts by others. Seems like there are some very knowledgable peopele on here so I figured I ask a few questions and see if anyone else had any ideas. I have worked on many cars but very few manual transmissions and this is my first British car. I picked up a 69 Sprite 1275 for dirt cheap that was in bad shape and needed about everything but it had a clean title and ran good and came with new rear quarters for 400 bucks. Since then I have stripped it, had it blasted, replaced multiple body panels, hours and hours and days and days of body work, painted it, (came out really nice, its blue) detailed the engine, slaped it back in and got it running. It runs fantastic but has some clutch issues. My mistake came when I put the engine and trans back in and did not seperate the trans from the engine to check everything out before re installation. I have replaced the slave cylinder, slave push rod and pin, master cyl linkage pin, and believe I have thoroughly bled the system. Im getting approximately a 1/2 to 3/4 inches of movement out of the slave pushrod (not sure how far it is supposed to move but thats all Im getting. I have read some of the clutch bleeding posts and tried pushing the slave plunger in and bleeding, not pushing it and bleeding, and cannot get more anymore push out of the slave plunger. My release bearing still has a pretty good carbon pad on it like an 1/8th to a 1/4 inch or so and its making contact plus about an 1/8 to quarter of push past contact. Dont think Im getting all the push I shoud be but thats only one of my issues. The car has 104k on it so its possible the clutch has been replaced (should have seperated tranny to find out but got in too much of a hurry). The car sat for some time, I would guess outside. So anyway, last nite I fired her up (runs like a champ), and cannot get into any gears. Thought maybe clutch was froze from sitting. Shut it off put it in gear and restarted,(on jack stands of course), drums spinning good and when reved they spin faster. However when in gear and and wheels spinning pretty good, clutch pedal depressed, I stomped the brakes hoping to get the clutch to free up. No change. I then tried with the clutch pedal not depressed in gear (several gears) just to see if it would stall, it yielded no rpm drop or stall what so ever. It should have stalled, but it made no difference at all. The wheels stopped and engine just kept purring like there was no clutch at all. Brakes are working great and have no problem locking rear wheels. But in gear not pushing clutch pedal down and brakes applied she did not stall. Could the clutch disc be so worn out its not even making contact? That would be pretty worn out, it should make some kind of RPM difference, really should stall but at least a noticable rpm difference. Like I said Ive never really done any serious clutch work and was wondering if there is anyway or anything I can check to figure this thing out without yanking the engine back out. Im hoping Im just having some mental block and am forgeting something stupid and simple. So I guess my questions would be, How much movement should I have at the slave push rod for starters? And second, what could cause the clutch to make no difference at all when in gear, wheels spinning and brakes applied, other than completely worn out clutch. Parts dont look like they are original and dirty by any means when looking up through the dust boot. Not new but not 100k on them either. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help. Maybe Ive just been starring at it to long.
Joe