Triumph Repair: spitfire clutch, clutch fluid, clutch pedal

Question
I parked my 1979 spitfire up a few weeks ago and when I came back to drive it the clutch was very loose and not engaging when I pressed the clutch peddle. I noticed the clutch fluid was slightly low so filled it up with Dot4. This brought the resistance back to the clutch but it is still not engaging when depressed. Any ideas?

Answer
Hi Jeremy,
You may have not gotten all of the air out of the system. When you loose enough fluid, air enters the system and just refilling will not always expel all of the air so you need to do two things.

First and most important is to locate where the fluid is leaking out. If it is just a line fitting, just correct it and bleed the system.

If it is leaking down the back of the clutch pedal or leaking from the inside of the slave cylinder you should consider either rebuilding the slave and master cylinder both as when one starts to leak the other is not far behind it. If you rebuild them, inspect the inside for pits and if they are pitted you should either have them sleeved or replaced.

The Spitfire and the TR-6 were right on the edge as far as their ability to disengage the clutch. Everything had to be just right to disengage the clutch enough even when they were new and if you added thick carpet the problem was compounded. Even a small amount of air in the system made it difficult to disengage the clutch. This caused excessive ware on the gearbox syncros and even the reverse gear teeth when trying to engage a gear, especially from neutral.

Howard