OK, it's broken again - clutch this time

So, after all my recent gearbox and brake travails being sorted out, I tried to take it out for its first outing in ever this weekend.
Battery manager had done its job and started easily enough - then push clutch pedal to get reverse...

* Pedal stays down, can't "feel much happening".
* Pumping the pedal does nothing (have to pull it back by hand between attempts)
* Can't engage any gears
* Fluid reservoir is full
* The hefty spring seems in place, and moves when you push the pedal, so seems attached.

It had worked perfectly before this.

Best guesses? Master cylinder? The clutch assembly was replaced recently, though the slave wasn't replaced, probably a bit on an oversight.

Hi Mike,

I'd start with the slave cylinder, they are the first to go. With the master cylinder you sometimes get a leak around it which would indicate it's that, plus brake fluid on your shoes!!

Get somebody to see if the slave cylinder is moving the actuator arm when you press the pedal. If not, and you haven't' got brake fluid on your shoes, its the slave cylinder. If it is moving the arm then suspect something wrong with the clutch and/or actuating mechanism

Drove it home today, finally.

Turned out to be the master cylinder, had brake one swapped at the same time, of course. And also the brake light actuator was knackered, so Claire at Eurosport couriered one over to them. Apparently there were "issues with bleeding the systems", must find out what they were.

Clutch pedal seems high now, with lots of travel before anything happens. Being a 6 footer it's always awkward, but seems more so now. I'll have to see if that can be adjusted...

Anyway, let's hope that's the end of having it trailered around this year.

Make sure you have the required bit of free play between the slave cylinder rod and he actuator arm to prevent premature wear of the clutch.

Took it for a run into That There Wales today, and only sightly broken this time.

Front fan was not coming on. didn't really notice on the way outas it was pleasantly cool, and the temperature didn't look much different from usual. Got hot puttering through Welshpool, but stopped at a caff before it went too high. Coming back, the sun came out and the temperature climbed, inside and out. Had to stop for half an hour near home, to let things cool, but then got back OK.

I can make the fan come on by shorting across the sender wires, so that's the culprit (couple of false starts there as I forgot that the front fan - unlike the carb fan - only works with the ignition on). I've just replaced it with one of those uprated ones (works at 5C lower) ones and I'll see how I go with that. You can get the old out and new in with losing hardly any coolant if you're quick. Still need to put spade connectors on the end of the original wires, though, as the original 1500 version has wires built directly into the business end of it.

One day I'll take it out and it will just work. One day.

Oh, and another thing.

There was a super-thin, wiggly green wire with bare copper wire stuffed into the earth side of the connector for the radiator fan. I took it out, and the radio started flashing and demanded its security code.

Who fits an earth for the radio into the radiator fan?

We oufght to collect these for the mnagazine. "Strange things previous owners have done".

Think of all these problems as a worthwhile bonding exercise

Fit a secondary fan next to the original for back up if you acquire a original fan and housing it fits straight on to the rad, the threaded lugs are already there , wire it up to a switch inside the car .Some days when stuck in traffic on a very hot day 1 fan isn't enough

Good idea. I don't have a cooling problem as such, but every time the fan comes on and goes ff in a queue it seems to be about 0.2C higher. I've done the thing where you fit an override to the main fan via a dashboard switch in a previous car.

Original fans seem reasonably rare and quite expensive. is there an alternative that can be made to fit? I've seen "universal" fans advertised.

I was talking with Andrew Punter one NEC (hi if you're out there) and he reckons we need an inline auxiliary water pump to keep a good flow through the radiator when engine revs are low. Somebody should definitely do that. Problem could be the exiting impeller might put a brake on the circuit, might need to bypass that completely. He wondered aloud if revving the engine is the best way to keep it cool in a queue - I can see the logic, but it's not something I'd want to try out in a 5-mile tailback out on the A5 near Lllangollen on a blazing hot day.

Quite a bit of talk on the xweb forum about the pumps and auxiliary electrical pumps. I think the consensus was get the impeller to housing tolerance correct and use a pressed metal impeller. Get the rad recored or fit one of the aluminium ones and you should be ok. The oem fan shifts a lot of air but draws a bit of juice and the aftermarket ones are the opposite, lower power but don’t move as much air.

I found just getting the oem rad recored and making sure the system is bled properly solved my overheating issues.

If in good order the standard components are very capable of dealing with the heat produced by a X1/9 engine, after all, I have no overheating problems from the 200hp turbo engine in mine. Furred up rad, debris in the pipe work, crud in the engine galleries, air in the system - all contribute to poor cooling, unfortunately addressing most of those issues is a messy and involved job. Having said that a by pass switch is a good idea in case the thermostatic switch fails, or as a short term measure until you can address the root causes

An air bleeder section at the highest point in the system, heating circuit in mine, did wonders.

David - how do you get at it? Everything trembles at the thought of interacting with anything to do with the heater circuit.

@Speedy - I don't think I have a cooling problem per se (well, once I finish putting it back togther), but I'm just paranoid. Owning an X1/9 doesn't help with that.

If you open the front boot, pull back the carpet where it goes under the nose and on the near side you'll find a hole in the body work, probably blanked off with a rubber grommet. Down that hole you'll find a hex headed bolt/bleed screw in the top of the radiator. It's not easy to access, but unscrew that and wait until you get a bit of coolant running out, that means all the air is our of the radiator, it can make a big difference. It's not uncommon for the bleed screw to be corroded into place and/or the head/threads chewed up by bodged attempts with the wrong tools trying to unscrew it, you can also easily drop the screw and then scrabble around underneath while trying to find it in the crevices of the bodywork while coolant leaks out on your head - so the question is to paraphrase Mr Eastwood '...do you feel lucky'
Once you've done it a couple of times its no problem. If you can do a dry run then all the better