Now that I had my bleeding kit, I went ahead and bled the brakes. Using DOT 4 fluid, the front and rear systems were bled without issue. The reservoirs were left at the "Full" mark.
I moved onto the clutch bleeding where it apperared to bleed ok. I tried the pedal and it all seemed good. Again, topped up the resorvoir to the "Full" mark.
A while later, I noticed a small puddle of fluid underneath the gearbox bellhousing. The clutch reservoir level had dropped. On investigating with a torch, and peeking in through only a few of the small openings, I could see that the fluid supply fitting had a small weep. If you remember I made a fitting here.
Since this is all inside the bellhousing, and also the fitting was made to a short length for neatness, I couldn't tighten the fitting from outside the gearbox housing. (Hindsight would have been a great thing).
I managed to get a spanner fitted inside but couldn't turn it. I then got a 4" adjustable spanner inside and could manage to put a bit of pressure on to the spanner to try and nip up the fitting. As you can imagine, you can't put very much force on with a 4" adjustable, but I managed to put enough on to break the clutch slave cylinder and release bearing! Needless to say, the rest of the fluid poured out into the floor.
The only way to fix this was to remove the engine!
I had to undo the front support brace, the cooling water reservoir, exhaust manifolds, starter, undo the fuel hoses and wiring then it just lifted out! The design of the housing has a thin section as the fitting goes into it. Possibly been weakened before? I think this is a Tremec manufactured cylinder, but not 100% sure.
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| What it should look like |
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| Welded release bearing and new fitting |
