Is this a record

[COLVERT]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBG

Hope my luck holds on the clutch front (new LUK clutch / DMF / master and slave about 15k ago).........BUT................


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JohnnyBG

I tried that before coming up with the method that I described in an earlier post.

When I did it the way you suggested I could not recover the post. I lost my post on several occasions before I tried a different way.----

[Ched]

I went and collected my car today, the clutch feels much better than the one it had replaced strangely.

This is where it becomes odd, the chap said the inside of the gearbox was dry, no sign of fluid leakage, clutch plates dry.
No disputing the fact that it was impossible to get any gears and still fluid in the master, no sign of any fluid leakage where the pipe joins the master or where the two pipes are connected, no sign of fluid at the bleed screw, but there was a catastrophic failure of something which the replacement slave has cured.

Having said all that I did notice fluid where the two pipes enter the slave, I'm thinking that possibly air was drawn in through this connection, enough to totally disable it, before the clutch went the first sign was the clutch getting heavier and my first thought was that air was entering the system somewhere.

I have the slave and I shall be pulling the thing apart and will post some pics of it.

[Odd Job]

I look forward to seeing what you find.

I've taken my car off the road at the moment as I'm trying to decide what to do.
The clutch does work, but now is starting to feel strange as well as heavy, and I don't want something to pop and leave me stranded somewhere.

[Odd Job]

At this point, I have no idea what the problem is with the heavy pedal.

It does creak when pressed, but then it's SO stiff my leg and back creak as well!

Very recently though, it's started to feel strange as well. I cant really put it into words, but it's more than just very heavy.
It's making me think something is about to go pop.

[Odd Job]

That seal has some quite large chunks missing out of it,
could there have been some contamination in the fluid?

As to the pivot shaft, a quick blast with some form of lube will be applied!
Not sure it'll be until next week though now.

[bl52krz]

Originally Posted by Odd Job

That seal has some quite large chunks missing out of it,
could there have been some contamination in the fluid?

As to the pivot shaft, a quick blast with some form of lube will be applied!
Not sure it'll be until next week though now.

The more that people report that the slave cylinder has gone awol before many miles, makes me wonder about why they go awol. Is it because the plastic that is used for their construction is incompatible with the fluid used? Is it that the constituent’s used in the fluid have been changed without any testing for compatibility? Is the plastic that is now being used recycled plastic? There is obviously something going amiss with rubbish parts in that item. The pictures you show seem to show that the seals actually crumble away. Are they to hard? Are they crumbling because if made from a plastic pellet in a mould, and the pellet has been made from recycled plastic bits, not enough pressure has been applied to make the item? Or not enough heat? They certainly don’t look like rubber to my untrained eye. One thing we do know, is that there is a serious lack of attention to testing by the manufacturers of these and other items made. To try and blame it on the lack of professional fitting is ridiculous in the extreme. I think one of the biggest problems is that a lot of people do not want to pay much for their parts. It is a bit like:- pay peanuts you get monkeys.But the problem has become in some instances, the ‘cheapo’ manufacturers have cottoned onto the fact that, if they charge nearer the price of a good item, they sell more. So where do we go from here?

[Ched]

Originally Posted by bl52krz

The more that people report that the slave cylinder has gone awol before many miles, makes me wonder about why they go awol. Is it because the plastic that is used for their construction is incompatible with the fluid used? Is it that the constituent’s used in the fluid have been changed without any testing for compatibility? Is the plastic that is now being used recycled plastic? There is obviously something going amiss with rubbish parts in that item. The pictures you show seem to show that the seals actually crumble away. Are they to hard? Are they crumbling because if made from a plastic pellet in a mould, and the pellet has been made from recycled plastic bits, not enough pressure has been applied to make the item? Or not enough heat? They certainly don’t look like rubber to my untrained eye. One thing we do know, is that there is a serious lack of attention to testing by the manufacturers of these and other items made. To try and blame it on the lack of professional fitting is ridiculous in the extreme. I think one of the biggest problems is that a lot of people do not want to pay much for their parts. It is a bit like:- pay peanuts you get monkeys.But the problem has become in some instances, the ‘cheapo’ manufacturers have cottoned onto the fact that, if they charge nearer the price of a good item, they sell more. So where do we go from here?

Quite simply Dave, it's cheap rubbish, designed and made, it was never going to stand the test of time, probably bmw's doing.

Comparing it to what other manufacturer's use this was obviously meant for something in the toy market, I have seen better made and stronger plastic toys.

[bl52krz]

You are probably right Dave. I have spent quite a bit of time looking at the ZF site which in turn brings up, TRW, BOGE, Lemforder, Sachs parts. I am certainly going to replace anything that goes assupwards on mine in the future, I will definitely try one of those mentioned. At least they are a well known brand. All this OE false description rubbish gets on my nerves. It is really a sham description in my opinion.

[Odd Job]

The letters "O E " used to stand for Original Equipment,
But like has been said, "Orangutan Evolution" is what it stands for now.

I've seen it so many times with "rubber" components in the classic Mini scene.
That is one reason poly bushes have really taken off as a replacement, but you can't poly bush everything.

Tyres don't seem to wear out anymore, they age harden, turn to something akin to plastic, and you loose wet weather tracking, they crazy crack and start to disintegrate before your eyes.

I'd like to get my hands on the stuff they use for seals in the space station.
I bet they've got a fantastic operating life on them!

[Lovel]

Manufacturer tooling doesn’t last forever, and can wear down. It’s super expensive to re-tool, hence tempting for these companies to stretch the life of the tooling.

Consider this if LUK was the original supplier to MG Rover since 1998, has the moulding been updated since then after probably 100’s of thousands of pressings? Slight tolerance variation on a probably very tight tolerance component here would easily result in failure earlier in life. Excess flashing from worn tooling of the plastic housing could cause elastomer failures quite quickly.

As an example anyone (ok with much wider tolerances) that has seen the rear wing of a P6 will understand this as the later pressed wings from the original worn tooling are a mile away at the shut line compared to the original pressing.