Clutch Cable Adjustment

I've got almost 1000 miles on her now. Shifting has be notchy, at best. With engine off, it's easy to run through the gears. With the engine on and clutch in, it's much tougher (especially 1st). I have about 1/2" free play in the clutch. My logic that the cable isn't tight enough, and, therefore the freeplay should be less. I've been told it's too tight and should be more like 1". When it's warmed up, it seems to be better, which lends to the longer is better theory. I'm not sure if I should just keep driving it and hope everything stretches in or do something. When I put it reverse it always grinds a little. Please give me some clues.

Tom:

Drive it for a week and then decide.

You may just not be used to the feel of it.

gn

Tom,

Free play in the clutch pedal should be 1/8"....it sounds to me like you are not completely disengaging the clutch, which is what having too much "free play" would do....

Jim. Thanks. That's what I'm thinking too.

Well, according to my Bentley VW Service manual, 1/8" free play at the pedal is WAY too little, although about 1/8" at the actuator arm on the tranny sounds about right

The book states 10-20mm or 3/8" - 3/4" before feeling resistance, so your 1/2" is right in the middle. I've always set them at 1/2" or so freeplay, too, measured at the top lip of the pedal.

If you really have to do something, tighten the wing nut 1/2-turn and drive it. If that's not enough, try another 1/2 turn, but make sure your pedal free play is at least 3/8", measured at the top lip of the pedal, otherwise you may end up riding/spinning the throw-out bearing all the time and cause premature failure.

gn

Hi Gordon. Just got back from Bill Demeter's. We fooled with. Increasing the freeplay made it much worse. Decreasing it to around 1/4 made it MUCH better. It's still grinding a little going into reverse. Any other adjustment points to look at?

Gordon is correct regarding pedal travel versus actuator arm travel. The 1/8" would be on the arm on the transmission. It made perfect sense to me when I wrote it.....I knew completely what I was thinking...too bad I didn't articulate it properly....

On my car I have 3/4+" of "dead" pedal travel with 1/8" free travel at the wing nut on the transmission....

I'm not sure that I'm following all of the comments. We shortened the clutch cable by tightening the wing nut at the transmission. This decreased the free travel at the pedal. Where is the other adjustment?

The only adjustment is the wingnut at the transmission arm. Try putting the transmission in 1st or 2nd gear before putting it into reverse. Also, after depressing the clutch, give a little time before putting into reverse. There is no syncro on reverse, so the gears have to stop spinning before it will slide in with out a grind.

Will, great tip! I will give that a try tomorrow.

Will. That was it. I started the car up in neutral this mornin and the shifted to reverse. No grinding :)

Tom, to answer your question. Forget about freeplay at the pedal. Center your attention to the throw out bearing actuating arm on the transaxle. Grab the arm, (it's the one with the clutch cable running throug a diamond shaped hole) Pull the arm towards the front of the car. You should only have about 1/8" of travel before the throwout bearing comes in contact with the pressure plate.

Once you feel the contact, adjust the wing nut to maintain the 1/8" clearance.

The bottom line is this, with the clutch mechanism as rest, you should be able to pull the throw out bearing arm only 1/8" before it stops by contacting the clutch pressure plate.

In addition, over time, this setting will change and the 1/8" distance will grow as the cable stretches with use. Usually, this takes several thousand miles to achieve full stretch on the cable so, this means that you'll be under the car re-adjusting the cable several times over the next year.

Does that help?

Larry,

Tons! Thanks!

It's shifting much better since we adjusted the clutch cable, but not quite there yet. I'll tackle this this weekend.

Tom

Tom I just had my trans out to put 3.88s in last fall.When I built my car I installed synthetic 80-90 in the trans. It shifted great even downshifting into 1st with 4.75 gears. After new gears I put regular 80-90 in, transmision shifts a little tighter until warmed up good.
Can't hardly down shift into 1st when cold but once warmed up good works ok. I have at leased 1" to 1.5" free play at the pedal. Just a thought.

Thanks Everett. I'm pretty sure it's the clutch cable. Shifting is smooth with the engine off. I tweaked it again last night and I'm almost there. I intend to crawl under there tonight and get it perfect :)

Guys, TOTALLY forget about free play at the pedal.
Center your attention around the freeplay at the clutch arm
1/8" is the magic number. (see my post above)

Like butter :)