Empty Clutch Cylinder In My Esprit

[TimSportsTourer]

Hi all,

 

Sorry for not saying much recently. I've spent 4 ½ of the last 6 weeks in the USA (mostly for work) – I've not been around much.

 

So here's my latest news. I try to give my Esprit S4 a run every week at least. In theory, it's my "daily drive" but I don't drive daily – I bike to work on a good old-fashioned push bike. Really old-fashioned – one from 1982. 

 

I ran the Esprit about 8 days ago, spent the week in the States, and then took it for a short drive today to get some petrol, amongst other things. I'm quite sure that as of today, something is wrong with the clutch. There's only pressure in the last inch or so of travel, but the clutch seems to work fine. It releases fine, and it grips fine. Something is obviously wrong. I had a look in the reservoir, and there's no fluid in the cylinder. Oh dear. Now I know there's an issue with the brake accumulator, since the brake  pump runs every other application of the brakes rather than every four or more, so now the accelerator is the only pedal that working properly. But one out of three is OK, right?

 

Annoyingly, there are lots of stories of people who have burned their Esprits to a crisp by running them without a working clutch. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get it to Gerald at GST in Newmarket by filling it with clutch fluid before I leave and crossing my fingers. Oh, and stopping and refilling if I lose clutch travel.

 

So all is well in Tim's Esprit world. Have old Lotus, have niggles. Ah well. Still love it to bits. Who wouldn't?

 

Hope you are all doing better!

 

[chris_h]

Always going to be niggley little problems as the car gets older.  Hope its not too expensive!

[Reg]

Sounds to me like you just need a new master or more probably slave cylinder (unless the hose has gone), none of which is expensive or difficult to fix.

The brake accumulator is about £100 (if you use a Jag item) and just unscrews once you've depressurized the system (by pumping the pedal 50 times with the ignition switched off).

[TimSportsTourer]

Yep – all these niggles are a part of the ownership experience. Just have to get on with it. The good news is that it is 100% worth it. Or possibly more.

 

Master, slave or hose? Yep – I guess so.  Most probably, it's the seals in one of the cylinders. The hose is a braided one, so I'm not expecting that to be the culprit, and the thing to do seems to be to replace the seals in both. If you fix one, the other goes within a few weeks, typically, apparently. I hope there's nothing actually broken about either cylinder, and I confess I am curious where the fluid is now, though, because it's not on my garage floor.

 

The brake accumulator will need replacing one day, but currently, Gerald (the G of GST) says that it's best not to bugger about with it. If it gets worse, it will certainly need replacing as you say, but he says that if it's OK at the moment, I should leave it. His experience is that replacing the accumulator can make it much worse, as well as better, and then it's a whole can of worms to work out what else needs doing. As I'm sure you know, Reg, this is a piece of joy that is rather typical of Esprit ownership. One learns to go along with the wisdom of the wise.

 

All being well, Thursday will be a day to fix the clutch, assuming I can top up and bleed the clutch enough myself to make it driveable to get it to Newmarket.

[TimSportsTourer]

So here's the dénouement of this story. It turned out not to be too bad. A couple of years ago, the slave cylinder was replaced with a "new" one from Lotus. We now guess it had been on a shelf there for a long time, because when it came to pieces, all the seals had gone soft. The slave now has new seals, and the clutch now has both fluid and function. One of those old-car things, then.