> FWIW, My seal has leaked a lot for years and the clutch has yet to be
> affected. Often, when oil gets on the disc, it will chatter when you first
> accelerate.
>
> I don't recall if you said how your clutch was adjusted before YOU adjusted
> it. Was it too tight (no freeplay at the slave)? If so, you may have
> glazed it from constant slippage. An old trick the Germans taught me was to
> blow a coupla tablespoons of Ajax up in there while the other guy is working
> the pedal in and out at idle. Use a long tube, precharged with the cleanser
> and do not inhale! It will dry (temporarily) wet oil (if any) and break a
> glaze, sometimes resurrecting a thought-to-be-shot clutch. Works with
> brakes to stop squeaks, too.
>
> The bummer is, yours sounds like you might need to yank the
> powerplantgearbox and replace the clutch assembly. Hope not, but if so...
Ed and I have bounced a couple of posts back and forth and he mentioned the
additional possibility of a problem with the main input shaft seal on the
tranny. He started using synthetic gear oil, which sometimes starts old
seals leaking. So..., there are two possible sources of unwanted lubricants
co-habiting with the clutch, etc., plus the question of proper adjustment.
In my book it just shows that as simple as these cars are compared to newer
one, they still offer their own set of problems. I remember an observation
from the '60s that goes something like, While GM owners have Guardian
Maintenance, British car owners have Constant Maintenance. Maybe we should
include the owners of all older niche cars like ours in the later group. ;>)
FWIW,
Ron
|