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Re: Midget hydraulics

To: Andrew Dooley <adooley@umr.edu>
Subject: Re: Midget hydraulics
From: fickes@taurus.apple.com (Stan Fickes)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 11:39:12 -0800
>   The car has a bad habit of spitting the piston out of the slave cylinder
>every time she's upset.

>   Can anyone tell me if the rod between the slave cylinder and the clutch
>fork was originally supposed to be adjustable?  Mine ahs a threaded bolt on
>the slave cylinder end which lengthens it when turned out, and I'm wondering
>if this is another custom job by the PO.  I would also appreciate any advice
>anyone would care to offer.

My Sprite was originally a 1098, converted to a 1275.  I played around a
bit to get a setup that worked well with my 1098-style master cylinder.  I
think I ended up using a 1275 slave cylinder with the 1098 master.

The push rods in Spridgets were not adjustable from the factory, though
they did come in 3 lengths (I think) depending on which engine you have.
Assuming the piston ejection problem is not caused by clutch problems like
extreme wear, it may be that your pushrod is too short, or the slave
sylinder is too small in diameter for the master cylinder.  I had a similar
problem when I first got my Sprite.  The slave cylinder was too small in
diameter, so the pedal travel was about .5" between fully disengaged and
fully engaged on the clutch.  This made the car rather difficult to drive,
to say the least.  I replaced the slave cylinder with a larger bore
cylinder, which made the car much more driveable, (Laura can drive it now!)
and I removed the nut the P.O. had used to "lengthen" the pushrod.  Moss
lists the bore of the 948/1098 cylinder as 7/8", and the 1275 as 1".  They
are not interchangeable with the 1500 cylinder.

Good luck!  sf

Stan Fickes                    British Cars
Wireless Communications        1951 MGTD (under construction)
Advanced Technology Group      1965 Austin-Healey Sprite (daily driver)
Apple Computer, Inc.
408 974-7653





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