Right now its pitch black, raining and cold outside but it'll be the first thing that gets checked in the morning. We did fit extractors a couple of weeks ago and they seemed to have moved so that getting the slave cylinder off required the down tube to be massaged with a ball pene. Nothing seemed to be touching the exhaust when it was finished but it was close.

Yep I can cheer. The clutch was supposed to be the easy part of the week though. I still got to sort out a miss that I've heard for a year and two sparkys cant, and fit new rotors and pads and feel happy with the Vitara before heading off for the long weekend. I seem to have the reverse Midas touch with this SV420 and the missus wont travel in the Samurai.

Well we made sure no part of of the slave cylinder or pipe work was close to the exhaust, extended the push rod on the master 5 mm, bled the system 3 times including pulling the master and finding it slightly leaking and have now replaced the master cylinder. All to no real improvement. The mechanic called Repco (who supplied the clutch kit) and it turns out there is an option with the thrust bearing. The optional one is about 2 mm thicker and this may make all the difference. It also looks like the clutch pedal is bent but its been like that for over a year and caused no problem.
Original problem - new clutch works fine until after a half hour drive then doesn't completely disengage so that reverse and first graunch badly.

Next step is remove the gearbox again and check tolerances on the moving bits. Its getting hard to love this truck!