I did say it was a marina engine, box and clutchAll the "oily" bits are marina/ital: engine, box, clutch etc
Anyway, much swearing later and it’s changed, jacked car up and stuck it on ramps so there was LOADS of space under it and used a 4' breaker bar to lever the clutch off then the old cylinder just "fell" out. The reason I couldn’t take the hoses off it was it was the wrong cylinder for the box so there was nothing holding it still. The new cylinder (from a late ital £42 from Lloyds) has a shaped ring around it so that it can’t rotate when it is in place. This didn't cure the problem (although much improved i.e. I can get it into gear so I can park it). I thought I'd do the master cylinder (£82 from Lloyds). Fitted that in five minutes (why can’t all jobs be that easy). I now have a clutch that works but no amount of bleeding seems to stop the air coming through. As the only parts in the clutch system left are the hoses there must be a gap in those somewhere (its not leaking anywhere though) I can find nowhere that sells the stupid shaped part metal, part clear red plastic hoses that connect the master and slave cylinders and the slave cylinder and bleed nipple (which is stupidly located on top of the rocker cover!) Strangely the clutch seems to work OK even with air in the system. It's probably naff compared to what it should be like but has so much more feeling than it has had since I got it. Thanks for the suggestions. Next time I can’t do something I’ll just use more brute force and ignorance. It seems to work quite well
