clutch slave cylinder == fun police

[brynk]

g'day all

hit a snag today which brought gusty to his knees ; managed to catch the clutch slave cylinder (clutch operating cylinder in the manual) push rod when we were out - the push rod was pulled off the withdrawl lever rendering the clutch unable to be disengaged with the engine was running. (no shit!)

we were pointing up-hill in mild poo, but nothing that bog-stock low range couldn't handle. things came wildly unglued when i tried to get under there and diagnose the problem.

decided that i needed to pull the slave cylinder off to see if i could re-seat the pushrod & re-instal - only to find that the bolts had in all likelihood been put on with a rattle-gun. i managed to get one off (the favourable one) but drew up short of rounding the head on the one behind the propellor-shaft.

clutchless, we managed to start up in low 1 pointing up hill, with the aid of an electric winch (courtesy of a couple of fkin good blokes who i owe a coldie or two!); we drove home without the ability to swap cogs at will. basically meant pointing down hill, stopping, and re-starting in the chosen ... believe it or not you can key-start the patrol in third.

anyway, my proposal is for you to go out to your manual truck next time you've got 5 mins, undo these two bolts by hand and then do them back up again. maybe you'd even use a bit of low strength thread-locker so it doesn't vibrate loose. the theory being that you can undo these by hand, with some 1/2 decent ring spanners, on the side of a hill, with clutch fluid leaking over everything!

ps. would love to see some designs of a bash plate that encompasses the clutch slave if anyone had any on hand?

r's brynk