Hi All, hoping someone can give me some advice please.
For quite some time now I've had a re-occurring problem when my slave cylinder in my Pilgrim Sumo mk3 keeps failing. I've had a garage fit one of the slave cylinders in the past ti ensure its aligned correctly and even that failed over time.
I have a SBC350 with a Getrag 265 gearbox. The slave is a Wilwood pull type.
In the past from talking to other Cobra owners, a lot of people favour a push type slave, Girling from memory.
However to mount this (assuming there's space) im going to need to create a custom mount to fix it to the bell housing or engine block in some way. This is where I feel my skills on how to approach and do this is failing somewhat.
If anyone has any advice on how to do this or any alternative ways of improving the longevity of a slave cylinder, it would be greatly appreciated!.
I'll upload some pictures of the current setup I have soon when im back home.
Thanks in advance!
BR,
Dave
I presume you have a billeted alloy adapter plate between the bell housing and gearbox? Spacing the gearbox back slightly.
If so, then if you contact the mother ship that is AK they should easily be able to send you out the slave mounting bracket for the side of the SBC. Or if you can weld i will happily get you some dimensions of mine and you can fabricate yourself.
But that should then allow you to mount a push slave cylinder with adjustable push rod and hopefully help your issue.
I'm not very familiar with the pilgrim chassis setup. But remember aiding/hindering my mate Ian when he was fitting his rover V8 and it was a tight fit.... With fanny whisker tolerances in some spots.
Hope this helps a bit.
Quote from: Tommy-boy on Jan 07, 2026, 07:52 PMI presume you have a billeted alloy adapter plate between the bell housing and gearbox? Spacing the gearbox back slightly.
If so, then if you contact the mother ship that is AK they should easily be able to send you out the slave mounting bracket for the side of the SBC. Or if you can weld i will happily get you some dimensions of mine and you can fabricate yourself.
But that should then allow you to mount a push slave cylinder with adjustable push rod and hopefully help your issue.
I'm not very familiar with the pilgrim chassis setup. But remember aiding/hindering my mate Ian when he was fitting his rover V8 and it was a tight fit.... With fanny whisker tolerances in some spots.
Hope this helps a bit.
Will definatly back using the Girling type slave, this is what I use for my SRV 8, not a Pilgrim I know, this is
what I have used for years on my Cobra and have only changed the old original one time, now I am touching
wood !
Mate of mine had one of the earlier Pilgims that used a cable system for his RV8, he would have preferred a
conversion to hydraulic due to issues related to cable systems,
Chris.
One of our local members had the cable system and was on his third cable in three years so went to a hydraulic master slave system. As Chris says the cable system is very unreliable as the cable route is poor. The local garage did the fitting and purchased the kit from Pilgrim. Pilgrim list a slave unit link below which is for an RV8 but could easily be applied to any engine gearbox.
https://www.pilgrimv8.co.uk/product/rv8-clutch-slave-cylinder/
Lots of different Girling units to choose from. A good list is below from these suppliers.
https://www.circuitsupplies.com/clutch-cylinders-and-accessories
https://www.powertrackbrakes.co.uk/scylinder.html
The key points in selecting the unit.
1. The bore size determines the fluid volume and pedal travel
2. The travel distance required to disengage the clutch plate
3. The pipe dia again volume effects the travel.
4. The fork length is square to the plunger in travel
5. Solid mounting points to stop any movement.
Thanks for the reply below, it's very much appreciated!
Yeah I have the adapter between them correct.
What you've said below re: AK jogged a memory, as I recall when I first starting having this problem a few years back, I contacted them and they sent me a mounting bracket, but I could never get it to fit as it seemed the mounting holes on the bracket sent didn't lineup the the block. From memory I think it was more that there was supposed to be a threaded hole in the engine block that just wasn't there. I'll look through my box of bits I have in the garage to see if I can dig it out and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. I'll take some pics too.
Thanks again for the info, I'll do some digging
Quote from: Tommy-boy on Jan 07, 2026, 07:52 PMI presume you have a billeted alloy adapter plate between the bell housing and gearbox? Spacing the gearbox back slightly.
If so, then if you contact the mother ship that is AK they should easily be able to send you out the slave mounting bracket for the side of the SBC. Or if you can weld i will happily get you some dimensions of mine and you can fabricate yourself.
But that should then allow you to mount a push slave cylinder with adjustable push rod and hopefully help your issue.
I'm not very familiar with the pilgrim chassis setup. But remember aiding/hindering my mate Ian when he was fitting his rover V8 and it was a tight fit.... With fanny whisker tolerances in some spots.
Hope this helps a bit.
Sorry I should say (unless this is obvious from what I've said) I have a hydraulic clutch system on the car, not a cable system.
Thanks much appreciated, I'm going to email pilgrim too about their slave they do to see if they have a mounting bracket (they didn't when I asked a few years back) as they may have come up with something by now perhaps.
I'll look at the AK bracket meantime.
I'm sick of going out in the car now wondering on every journey whether the slave is going to pop and leave me stranded.
Thanks again
Quote from: JON1D on Jan 08, 2026, 10:50 AMOne of our local members had the cable system and was on his third cable in three years so went to a hydraulic master slave system. As Chris says the cable system is very unreliable as the cable route is poor. The local garage did the fitting and purchased the kit from Pilgrim. Pilgrim list a slave unit link below which is for an RV8 but could easily be applied to any engine gearbox.
https://www.pilgrimv8.co.uk/product/rv8-clutch-slave-cylinder/
Lots of different Girling units to choose from. A good list is below from these suppliers.
https://www.circuitsupplies.com/clutch-cylinders-and-accessories
https://www.powertrackbrakes.co.uk/scylinder.html
The key points in selecting the unit.
1. The bore size determines the fluid volume and pedal travel
2. The travel distance required to disengage the clutch plate
3. The pipe dia again volume effects the travel.
4. The fork length is square to the plunger in travel
5. Solid mounting points to stop any movement.
Some pictures of my setup, granted its AK but the engine/box is the same so "in theory" your only issue should be the clearance of the bracket against the chassis leg/rail.
The slave is then mounted on this bracket with the push rod onto the pivot arm. As mentiond above, you have to balance all the contributing factors to get a good pedal and feel. Such as the master diameter, clutch line size, slave diameter, pivote arm adjustment etc... etc... however its all relatively straightforward and once done a fairly light usable clutch with the bite as far down the pedal as possible, so in theory as the clutch plate wears and gets thinner the bite will travel up the pedal. So after a good few years/miles or butnouts the clutch bite will move from the floor up to the end of the pedal release.
Most people use a 3/4 master, 7/8 slave and i went with 100 series -4AN hose from Speedflow (might need to confirm that 100%) and the pedal is great, not as light as most production cars nowadays but light enough to be usable in traffic and solid enough to give a good feeling of whats going on.
(https://i.postimg.cc/ZWv9hFBm/IMG-4515.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/ZWv9hFBm)
(https://i.postimg.cc/qN6tdXhk/IMG-4516.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/qN6tdXhk)
Some years ago I converted our Pilgrim with 350 SBC and Tremec gearbox so hydraulic from cable. This is the slave cylinder I've used for many years and 10k's of miles with no problems. It's from Roadcraft at Lancing and has an extra long travel compared to off-the-shelf manufacturers models.
https://roadcraftuk.co.uk/product/5-8-clutch-slave-set/
Hope this is of interest.
Regards, Don
When I recently up[graded my Pilgrim to a Tremec TKX Roadcraft recommended I use an internal slave cylinder as there isn't enough clearance between the gbox and chassis rail, I appreciate this does mean removing the gearbox, but it works great