Checking Thrust Bearing in situ with endoscope.

I replaced the clutch and thrust bearing a year ago when I had the engine out. Just recently I’ve noticed a squealing/whistling noise when changing gear and yesterday I could feel a bit of a vibration through the clutch pedal so alarm bells ringing.

I remembered when I fitted the engine I struggled to get the clutch slave cylinder to fit and bolts to align. I reached under the car and felt the clutch release arm and absolutely no movement or slack at all.

This morning got the car on ramps and removed the clevis pin and removed the slave cylinder pin which was very tightly wedged into the release arm. Once removed I felt some slack. The pin seemed to be too long and even when the slave cylinder was fully retracted I couldn’t get the clevis pin back in.

I found the old slave cylinder pin which i had removed a great ago. The old one measured about 2mm shorter- see pic – so decided to put that back in rather than refit the new one seeing as the old one worked fine apart from being worn. Fitted fine leaving a bit of slack on the release arm.

My concern then was in case the thrust bearing had worn badly considering the noises I had heard. So an ideal opportunity to use the endoscope I had bought a while ago (which the wife said was a waste of money – even though only £6 and a 6 week wait from China) which plugs into my phone. See video above and all ok plenty of graphite left……..and so far no more noises.

More about the endoscope at https://mgb.tips/2020/03/24/plug-in-endoscope/