I have to confess to not playing in the garage much since December. Obviously Christmas gets in the way and some seriously cold weather hasn't given me much incentive either.
The project of equipping the Green Cortina with twin 40 Weber carbs turned into a bit of a disaster, so that particular project has now been abandoned and the car has been reunited with it's original fuel supplier. The twin 40's looked good, but were just not suitable for my particular engine. They will now be sold to try and recuperate the purchase cost.
Dave Maton had a free day today and came up to give assistance with some other issues that had developed. So todays task was to get my Cortina estate driveable again. I had tried to use it a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't get it in any gear. My original hope was that the slave cylinder had failed, but fitting a brand new one showed that we still had the same issue. It was looking like the clutch was stuck to the flywheel, so we tried various different methods of un-sticking it, but had no joy at all.
We then decided to put the estate into the garage until such time it could be addressed, but had to get the Green Cortina out of the garage first. First of all we had issues starting it, then for some bizarre reason a copper brake pipe also decided to fracture and piss brake fluid all over the garage floor! Today was not going well!
So, with a new brake pipe made up and the brakes bled, we then managed to get the bloody thing started and moved it outside. The only car that wasn't giving us any trouble today was my Zetec two door Cortina. It started first time and the clutch wasn't stuck on, unlike the estate. (Even though it had been parked up for longer!)
Between us both we managed to turn the estate round and push it backwards into the garage ready to be worked on. I then put the other two cars back onto the drive and covered them over.
By now it was 1pm and Dave had to make a move back home. I had a quick cup of coffee and a quick tidy up of the garage. While enjoying my coffee I decided that seeing as it was quite mild I would make a start on the work required. When the clutch sticks solid to the flywheel, you have no choice but to either remove the gearbox, or the engine. Seeing as the estate has a column change gearbox with lots of linkages, I opted for engine removal and had it done within ninety minutes.
Although a major job, it was worth the effort as the clutch was indeed stuck fast to the flywheel. It should have come off when I removed the pressure plate, but as you can see from the pic below, it did no such thing.
Apparently the old stock original clutch plates are made with asbestos in the compound and this can absorb moisture and therefore can cause the clutch to stick to the flywheel in damp or cold conditions. (Especially when being parked up for a while) So I have ordered a complete new clutch kit made from non-asbestos material. The pressure plate looked quite knackered as well, so it all needs replacing.
I suspect the Green Cortina will need a new battery as well, so it looks like this is going to be an expensive month.
