Date:         Mon, 16 Oct 1995 07:44:54 -0600
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Dieter Dworkin Muller <dworkin@village.org>
Subject:      Re: clutch - help 


pl2018@bristol.ac.uk wrote:
:  no howling or grinding, just a reluctance to go into gear especially going
:  into 2nd. Then a sort of clunk as it finally goes in. Feels like the clunk
:  is right under the gear stick, but I could just be feeling the vibrations
:  of the cause in the back. 
:  This has been getting very slightly but steadily worse over the past
:  months. Recently there's been a "farting" noise as it goes into reverse
:  which never happened before.  

Classic signs of the clutch cable stretching.  It's kind of inherent
in the way cables are made.  The stretching *seems* to show an
exponential decay -- lots right after installation, slowly tapering
off over the years afterwards.  By `lots', I mean three or four
adjusting nut turns-worth in two to four weeks.

What's happening is that the clutch is not fully disengaging, so when
you put it into gear, you're forcing the clutch to `break loose' and
spin (aka slip).  This can wear the clutch down quickly if allowed to
continue for too long.

:  The clutch cable looks very new but there's no more room for adjusting it.
:  Clutch pedal free play is not too excessive - about an inch. Sag on the
:  cable is correct.

If you really don't have any adjuster thread left (its back above the
tranny, not at the front), then your cable has stretched a *lot*.
When I replaced mine recently, I could barely get the wing nut
retainer/adjuster fully onto the end of the cable.  After a couple
months, I've used maybe a tenth of the entire adjustment range.

If you replace your cable soon, you'll shouldn't do much damage to the
clutch.  I'd recommend this, as pulling the engine is a lot more
hassle then simply threading in a new cable (although they seem to
take about the same amount of time -- having a helper to grease and
guide the cable at the front helps a lot).

NOTE: As mentioned above, new cables stretch.  You'll have to adjust
the thing several times over the next few months.  A side-effect of
this is that you'll have to re-learn where your clutch engages a lot,
since every time you adjust it, it'll go from disengaging when the
pedal is through the floor to disengaging when you think about putting
your foot on it.  If you're really strong enough to get the adjustment
that tight, you should not get it as tight as possible.  An inch or so
before the clutch disengages is pretty much a minimum.  My usual test
is to make sure, while I'm under the car, that A) there's no slack in
the cable, and B) that there's a couple of millimeters play in the
lever that the cable attaches to.  Admittedly, after you've been
playing with the adjuster for a while, you may not be able to pull on
that lever with a whole lot of effect....

	Dworkin, who's clutch cable broke a few months ago