Clutch

Now we've done 2000 kms to France and came back, the clutch turned to be unwilling by the end of october. Since a few days there was less pedal pressure in the brakes, and later that week I wanted to start the engine and the clutch was dead. No pressure at all.
Now what?
It turned out te be the minor clutchcilinder that had a broken rubber, oil is leaking away. So an new cilindre has te be bought. But first the old one must be retrieved from the car.

Two arrows point out the clutch cilindrelocation.
It can't be seen directly but it is there, believe me.

That's a tricky job. In fact the cilindre sits on the clutch housing of the engine. One can see it rather bad, and to dismantle the thing is a simple yet fiddly work. After disconnecting the oil pipe, the only thing that holds the cilindre is a so called Seegerring, a ring that holds the complete cilindre before it can be pulled out of the clutch housing. But mine was broken, it missed one eye...
This partially blind Seeger gave me a hard time. After a few hours of fiddeling around in an impossible corner of the engine compartment, captain Seeger loosened and gave 'way the captivated cilindre.

Captain Seeger at last gave away the faulty cilindre (below).
The inner rubber rings were dry and damaged, setting oil free.

I replaced the original ATE cilindre by a Brembo-bargain.

A new cilindre was found very quickly on the interweb at Autodoc's: http://www.autodoc.nl (I've even got me an app on my iPhone.) Very accurate and solid delivery, a German company. The new cilindre was a Brembo and costs only around 24 euro's, shipping included.

Putting the new cilindre in its place proved to be almost as tricky as dismantling it. I did not buy a new Seeger ring, too complicated. and by the way, when it is that difficult to get it off, it won't get off easily by itself. I figured.