201 clutch slave cylinder swap and post mortem

[Duke2.6]

Well, now I'm an "expert". A big thanks to Greg and hanno for the helping hand!!!

I broke the B-nut loose with a Mac 12" wobbly extension and a 12mm crow foot tubing wrench. Piece of cake! The wobbly extension allowed the crow foot tubing wrench to properly engage the flats of the B-nut with no tilt angle. The toughest part was pushing the new slave into position and getting the mounting bolts started.

I found the bleeding procedure in the Haynes shop manual - makes perfect sense. After about twelve to fifteen pumps of the RF caliper, I closed the slave bleed valve to try the clutch, and voila! It's nice when something works. Thanks for the tip, guys. I looked through the Haynes manual again, and there it was. If it wasn't for your hint, I'd probably still be pumping the SOB trying to get a pedal. Being as how I also scheduled a brake flush for today, I completed that task before pumping fluid into the clutch system, so the fluid was fresh and clean

Now for the interesting post mortem. The clutch slave pushrod was badly worn on the end - at least and eighth of an inch, which is one reason why the clutch grapped right off the floor and sometimes dragged unless I pumped it up, being as how it was seeping. The bore looked to be in good condition with just a spec of rust at the back end near the bleed valve. Bienniel brake fluid flushes pay off.

I'm glad I don't have the clutch disk checking tool as it probably would have told me the clutch disk was worn out when it was really the slave pushrod that was worn.

Any of you guys ever pulled out a clutch slave with a severely worn pushrod?

BTW the clutch engages so high now that it seems to have almost no freeplay, but I'm sure it's okay. I just have to get used to that "as new" feeling again.

Duke

P.S. Thanks also to Phil at Fastlane for quick parts delivery. The Teves slave (which has the same Mercedes part number in the cylinder casting as the original) was less than half the dealer list price!