Laurel BROKEN AGAIN!

[Guest]

You should both come over, the entire fleet would be sorted in an afternoon! I could make some really lousy coffee and wear my blue overalls I got at a car boot sale to look semi-official.Quite funny really, my motors haven't had this level of activity for yonks - there's loads of plates spinning at the moment, even if a lot of it is just bothering to order the parts in for long-forgotten cars like the Stanza (remember that?). Sick of seeing dead cars at the moment.Would have been nice for the Laurel not to instantly become useless again, but it's just bad luck. It was going to happen either way. Was a good acid test for the new water pump anyway, I had to give it some fair old revs getting it back and the gauge behaved itself all the way!

[Ratdat]

Ratdat, we all KNOW you know your stuff, I mean, you are the Guru type bloke, we all aspire to...... etc (I'm gonna stop creeping now) I'm totally self taught, no qualifications, save for the testing one. I prefer it that way!

I firmly believe that self taught over time, though having an deep seated interest in the subject is the best way... it seems that a lot of folks who study vehicle mechanics officially seem to loose out on the ability to do diagnosis using simple understanding of engineering principles and common sense. Modern 'Technicians' seem to suffer greatly in this respect. If they can't plug in the laptop and read off the fault codes they're a bit lost.

[trigger]

It sound like you are both fighting to work on the Hirst fleet!.When i had a smoking problem on my wife's DCi Micra the first garage i went to plugged a code reader into it but as no fault came up he decided that there was nothing wrong with it, even though you couldn't see out the rear window and it wouldn't pull up the smallest hill in the town.It ended up going to a diesel specialists to have a new EGR valve fitted in the end.

[Ratdat]

My first port of call with this problem would be this. Undo the two bolts holding the slave cylinder to the box. If this releases the clutch arm the the clutch has full bite again then the chances are the cylinder has just jammed which is not uncommon on anything with an L series which uses the same setup. Occasionally the slaves are aluminium on later cars but more often then not they are steel and rust up inside the end where water and dirt gets in past the rubber boot. When the piston hits the rusty bit at the end of it's travel it jams solid sometimes. You might even be able to take it off and shove the piston back in, clean it up and re-use it.

[Tayne]

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[Pete-M]

If the clutch has borked it, and the Laurel is even slightly related to the old RWD Bluebird the clutch is an absolute piece of piss to do on them, even lying on your back in the street. Probably the lightest RWD 'box I've ever worked with.

[Spottedlaurel]

I've definitely had one slave cylinder failure on a Datsun, if not another one or two.

[Guest]

+1 for clutch master cylinder failure. Amazon had the same symptoms, except I could only get it into third.

[wilko]

Noisy clutch with pedal depressed is an issue I had in with SWMBO's Ford KA last year - when dismantled, it was the OE Sachs clutch cover at fault - it had started to come to bits, allowing the plate to flap about with the clutch depressed, a most unsettling noise like somebody rattling a ball bearing about in a can. I suspected a spring might have fallen out of the plate iteself, but this wasn't the case, and the judder you'd expect from that wasn't there either.Anywho... I had a C32 2.4 manual until recently - the steering was very light on mine, however, if the car hasn't been driven much in recent years, you may find it isn't the power steering pump/rack, but the balljoints/TCA ends etc... are stiff & may loosen up over time - I've had this with the Acclaim I am driving at the moment, after 3 months / 3000 miles of wilko abuse, the non-power steering has definitely loosened up a fair bit, noticeable mostly at low speeds.As for the clutch - hydraulic clutches fail constantly on cars that have been "laid up", I "recomission" a lot of motors for banger racing and end up having to do things to the master/slave/flexi pipe in a good 50% of the ones with hydraulic clutches to get them driving. Once fixed, I wouldn't expect it to fail again.The mate who owned my old C32 before me put a complete clutch kit in it as it was slipping a bit when he got it & described it as "a piece of piss" to do.

[Guest]

There were a few suspect things with the power steering - the whole belt system has been messed around with at some point, loads of finger tight bolts and the belt was slack too if I recall. It's noticably better now, but still heavier than I'd expect - we'll see if it loosens up a bit over time. It's got bigger wheels too, which can't be helping.Once the clutch is sorted I think I'll take it off the road for a bit and get it into a bit of a better state - do all the ignition parts and the exhaust, etc. I do a fair old mileage at the moment and I'm pushing a car into use that isn't quite ready for it.I reckon it has either been completely laid up or just not in regular use for the last few years. Just funny for it to take this long to cause me some grief, must have done about 1000 miles in it by now.

[VWPowered]

hope you sort it hirst, otherwise you have to buy a Mk3 5dr Escort in White of cause and stick Black Doors/Boot and Bonnet on it

[CIH]

my silvia had been laid up for a fair few years then put back on the road without any real kind of recomissioning ie; 10yr old cam belt, knackered suspension bushes, knackered rear brakes, knackered exhaust etc. This kind of thing will take time to come to notice. With my Silvia, it had been through 2 MOTs worth of use and nobody had done anything about any of it - they found time to put an induction kit on it though.

[seth]

I reckon it has either been completely laid up or just not in regular use for the last few years. Just funny for it to take this long to cause me some grief, must have done about 1000 miles in it by now.

Can take time. The slave cylinder in the Minx was weeping when we bought it after several years of inactivity. I just kept topping it up with the spare cylinder stashed under the back seat until it gave up completely a few months ago. Similarly the radiator didn't look to be in particularly good health but managed to last a couple of weeks (and about 800 miles) before it started peeing water out and by that tiem the replacement had arrived.

[Guest]

I've actually got a bit of a routine I use for cars which I've had laid-up for a bit that I bring back into use, also tend to use it on "new" cars. What I do is drive them around locally on short trips, then gradually work my way up to motorways, long trips, etc. Gives me a chance to sort out any little issues as I discover them - I'm mostly bothered about the idea of being stuck in traffic and finding my fan switch is a bit iffy, that sort of thing.Unfortunately with the Laurel, I really didn't have much option but to start using it as a daily in dreadful conditions from the off. If I'd just been using it to go to shop or the odd run out to Dewsbury, I'd probably have heard enough weird noises to get the clutch checked out before this happened, look at the low running temperatures before the water pump went, etc.Need to get more cars on the road to give me more options - I'm planning a bit of a blitz! I was hoping to get an MOT on all my cars by the end of 2009 (bar the Accord as I got that after), but there ended up being some complications which knocked it back a few months. It's all happening now though, loads of stuff in the post. Even for almost completely forgotten stuff - remember the 323 Estate? No? Oh.

[wilko]

Forgot to add - let me know if there are any C32 bits you need - a mate is breaking my old one for spares & then racing it.

[Guest]

Desperately in need of a standard back box!