Have had my saab b204 engine joined up with its vauxhall omega gearbox for a while now with its matching vaux concentric slave cylinder (£85 ) sitting quite happily in there too.
Decided to test it today and plumbed it up to a clutch pedal, tipped some fluid in the reservoir and typically it all ran the bottom of the gearbox.. bugger.
I took the box off and found this to be my crappy pipe flares (first attempts with a flarer).. redid them and they stopped leaking.. this was when I think I made a mistake, before joining the box back onto the engine I pressed the pedal a couple of times and breifly it held pressure then 'pop' it squirted out of the slidey bit pictured:


(finally) here's the question, was it just a duff cylinder or is it possible to overextend it due to there being no clutch fingers to push against and broken it? If so, are they even remotely fixable??, I can see the rubber seal that is leaking but no obvious way to replace.

Is the seal in a groove around the main body of the cylinder? a bit like a brake caliper If so it may? be possible to gently ease the piston back in but it would be a good idea to test it before refitting by restricting the piston travel, bleeding the system and pressure testing

The piston is held on by a swaged lip - not strong enough to withstand hydraulic pressure .
Fixable - but not easy (mine got damaged by rubbing on the clutch plate) I machined a tiny steel ring , and carefully welded it in place .
£85 I got mine for £25 off fleabay

Cheers for the replies,
I can't really get into it to have a look at the rubber seal properly - i'm guessing its now a dead cylinder
Fleabay here I come - £25 sounds much more appealing although I'll have to adapt my spacer alittle no doubt as the vaux omega ones seem expensive whereas astra/fiesta ones seem much cheaper although remarkably similar... afterall they just have to 'push' when asked

I did a similar thing with my Mondeo slave cylinder but I just pushed it back in giving it a twist as it went. It works fine.....

as above, yea they do pop off if no clutch to push onto, and beware, if its an omega v6 box (and it needs to be if on a saab turbo! ) then they had dual mass flywheels which are thicker and need a spacer behind the slave cylinder.

We found this one out the hard way!!

T'is indeed off the V6, just hope it holds up, should be ok being as it's a lighter car than the omega (I hope!).
I knew I'd probably need a small spacer in there but was surprised how big it had to be - wasn't aware the omega has a dual mass - that explains it
P.S. I have roughly cut a spacer to approx size ready for a bit of milling and I never want to have to hacksaw through an inch thick bit of ally again, my wrist ached for ages lol

Edit to ask: what slave cylinders have people used that have threaded connections, i dont want to end up with one of those quick-connect things that I have to find fittments for?
Cheers, Kev

[Edited on 12/4/09 by flibble]