That pin is a PITA but doable if you remove the front seat and lay on your back, i put a seat cushion under my back so i am level with the crossmember and a bit more comfortable. I use long hemostat forceps and they sell a cheap long needle nose vice grip at Harbor Freight which works also. A friend of mine said to use cotton thread threaded through the hole and pull it through the pedal but i have never tried that.

I will check out your recommendation and let me know how good it is.

I'm going to carve out some time tomorrow to pull the clutch pedal clevis pin and see if I can't get my phone camera up in the pedal box to check for oval holes in the pedal and MC fork Malsal. After reading how difficult it will be to put the pin back in, I spent 30 minutes today fashioning a "clevis pin holding tool" from an old license plate (and two rivets) based on a design I saw on a another site (google "tolspt001-clutch-clevis-pin-special-holding-tool" to see it).

But I'm also hopeful that seeing the plunger/shuttle stop nut jam up against the clutch housing when my daughter said she still had some more pedal throw/drop to go during re-bleeding today might show promise.

Since the "resting" gap is just about/under 6mm, while the spec requires 6.5mm, I'm hoping that the plunger/shuttle stop nut might just be preventing full throw/disengagement.

I'll try backing it off and report back.

Again, I can't thank you enough for your input Malsal!

You need to check every pivot point (see my other post).

I can swap out the oil easily enough Malsal.

Since reverse has always been a challenge even before this first use of the Brad Penn (MobileOne High Mileage, Valvoline MaxLife and Castrol High Mileage for my other three changes - I've only owned it for 3 years), I'm going to try a new arm in case it is ball wear.

Thanks for all the posts! Jim

Synthetic oil is not recommended in Mini's, just use a good 20w 50 unless you are in the great white North in Winter time.

Hey IsleBlue65...

What was your final resolution?

I'm asking because I've got a 1991 Cooper with a Verto clutch recently displaying the same symptoms as you described: fairly good clutching when cold, but very difficult 1st and reverse gears when warmed up. Plus I have engagement at a very low pedal height upon lift. Hydraulics appear good, no leakage, fair clutch arm movement and no back-movement of the clutch arm when the pedal is held down. And I only have about 1/4" of slop in the pedal to start (new clevis pin in the pedal box, so likely a little pedal or Master Cylinder fork wear).

What I can't explain is a full 1" of pedal movement before the MC fork starts to lift and before the clutch arm pivots along with the whole cold vs. hot mystery.

I did recently put in Brad Penn 20w50 which is a partial synthetic.

Any suggestions are most welcome! Jim

Well done!
It's a pity we have to re-manufacture or throw away NEW parts nowadays. Obviously the sellers care not for material specs, they just want a cheap, shiny widget that looks the part.
Some new parts are so dreadful that we are forced to CNC machine proper ones instead.

All done.  I machined and hardened the bushing and hardened the ball and cone portion above it on the arm.  Should see minimal wear now.  

I milled the plunger from the bottom of the hole, not the tapered side, up to about 1mm from the taper and pressed in the bush from the bottom.  The original bore and bushing ID match up perfectly, so no Dremel work required.  

Thanks Kevin, that makes it easier.  I'll pick up some high carbon steel and turn out a bushing. I've used Cherry Red case hardening compound and water quench with good results.  

You probably won't buy a bushing without a lot of searching.
I made my own:
9/16" outside dia (I made it .001" bigger than the drilled out hole), 7/16" bore x 7/16" long. I used silver steel, flame hardened it with oxy/propane, then quenched it in used motor oil. I didn't bother tempering it.
Don't drill the plunger quite all the way through, leave a slight shoulder to seat the bush against.
After fitting, chamfer the entry of the bush to match the taper in the plunger, I used a dressed stone in the die grinder.

The file peeled off shavings like butter.  Total crap.  

 

I dont have have the luxury of time to return it, nor do I have any confidence that anyone stocks good ones, so hopefully someone has the bushing.  

Thanks for the heads up Kevin.   The supier already pressed on the bearing with a thin spacer they use on their racing cars, but I can pull it off if needed - or just hold it in the mill vise and bore it for the budhing if needed.   Hopefully I got one of the hard ones, but it's good to know what to look out for.  

 

Unfortunately Chinese junk is very common these days.   I've resurfaced and case hardened complete sets of recently sold forged rockers because the valve stems were pushing dimples in them.  There are plenty of other examples too. 

Hardness test that new plunger before you put the bearing on it. See if you can file it easily. If so it is rubbish.
Some UK sourced plungers being sold here in Oz were only HRC2-3 hardness. Chinese plated rubbish steel (leadbrite or similar). Should be better steel, hardened to HRC52 or more.
If you have a soft one and want to use it, bore the hole to 9/16" and press fit a hardened steel bush in. I made mine from silver steel.
If you fit it as is, I'll give it 3 months before it's stuffed.

[edit] typo

"I removed the clutch cover, arm, plunger and throwout bearing."

That is how I got the photos of the plunger wear.  New plunger, t/o bearing and arm arrived yesterday and will be going in soon.  The plunger is noticeably tighter in the cover, which I would expect.  I sure hope this fixes the problem!

pull the clutch cover and free up the plunger. Clean out the crud, and put a bit of lithium grease on it. If you've not replaced the release bearing, now's the time.

You've done everything else.

Yes, the flywheel was turned, and the tabs were machined down the same distance.  This was over a year ago though, and this problem just started.

A few observations:

I have an adjustable push rod from the slave cylinder, and I had recently adjusted it out further (when I installed the new slave and master cylinders) - just to give myself a little more throw.  I noticed yesterday that the narrow portion of the adjustable rod was fully inside the slave cylinder and the larger tapered section was resting on the slave cylinder rubber seal.  I'll add to this that I had removed the clutch arm return spring about a year ago, and all has been working fine without it (except that there is no longer a spring pulling the push rod into the slave cylinder).  I think what Dan mentioned is a factor here - that the rod stopped when the taper hit the seal, but the piston was not in contact.  

This is the rod I have:

Lance mentioned to look for pivoting or twisting of the clutch throwout plunger, and I did see some side to side twisting and I could feel slop in it.  I removed the clutch cover, arm, plunger and throwout bearing.  The plunger has some wear where the ball pushed on it:

     

 

Also on my clutch arm, the cone shaped portion with the ball on top was actually bent about 2mm back, so there is lost travel there - similar to the bottom arm in the picture below:

 

So between shortening my adjustable push rod so that the slave cylinder piston is further outboard and a new arm, plunger and throwout bearing, I have to believe that this will either solve the issue or make it less noticeable.  None of this explains why it seemed to only be a problem once the car was warmed up, but these are all contributing to less travel than optimal, so I'm starting here.

It was also suggested to remove the big nuts on the plunger, as those really serve no purpose, which I tend to believe.  In fact, the only way I can see that the ball on the arm could have bent like that (aside from using a competition clutch spring, which I am not) is if those nuts were too far in at some point in its life and travel stopped before the hydraulic portion of the system moved as far as it can.   Those 2 nuts have been at least 1/2 to a full turn from touching the clutch cover for as long as I can remember.

 

Did your have the flywheel turned?  If so did the tabs on the plate get machined the appropriate amount to compensate for the amount taken off the flywheel?  

 

SirCoop

Remove the clutch arm return spring and phsically hold it while the clutch is being depressed slowly and look and feel for the play, there has to be some somewhere or the clutch slave is not returning all the way. Did you remove the arm and inspect the ball for wear? The only other thing i can think of is air in the system or the master cylinder push rod has become detached, it seems like you have covered most things but there has to be air or play in the system somewhere.

Edit: Thinking about it from what you have described i would look for play in the ball end of the arm, check how long it takes to move the plunger (on the end of the ball) once the slave rod on the other end has started to move.

Is the slave pushrod properly seated against the slave cylinder piston? It may not be going all the way in, and the piston has to move out to meet it? Maybe mark on the rod where it is a rest, then remove it and measure to where the face of the piston is.

Yes, that's what I meant by the clevis pin being tight - it has close to zero play.  I redid it when the new master cylinder went in less than a year ago.   There is no mechanical play in that area, and appears to be very little in the clutch arm, ball and throw out plunger areas.  I assume that any master cylinder piston movement should translate to slave cylinder piston movement, but this is where there is about 1/2" of master cylinder piston movement while pressing in the clutch pedal before the slave begins to move.