List:
I experienced a "sudden" clutch failure yesterday, which gave all
of the symptoms of one I had 8-1/2 years ago. The car was hauled
ignominiously, via huge transporter from the Costco parking lot,
to my home, where it sits in an undrivable condition in my
garage. I thought maybe I could just "adjust it" after I got it
home. Nope.
That earlier failure happened because one "ear" of the clutch
release fork broke off. I thought it unusual, because the fork
is a "husky" (~1/8th") thick steel stamping, and the point of the
break has only about a one inch moment arm, from where the load
is applied. The break had the appearance of a brittle fracture,
rather than a progressive, fatigue failure. and there is about a
3/8ths" long by.020" deep, impact or wear mark at the point of
the break. I'm attaching picture of the fork (which will be
stripped from the list transmission), but I will send "Bcc"
direct to a few list members. I'll be happy to send to anyone
who asks.
The fork I purchased to replace the one which failed, was "used",
but appeared as "good as new". I asked the vendor from whom I
bought my clutch rebuild parts, if he knew of another failure of
the clutch fork in a manner as mine. He didn't. That failure
had occurred only 6-1/2 years (about 20,000 mi.) after I had last
replaced the clutch - then, because of a release bearing
failure. At that time, I had reused the fork which was original
to the car.
About a month ago, I had solved a clutch hydraulic system problem
by increasing the "throw" of the slave cylinder. This was needed
because wear of the linkage prevented proper adjustment of the
clutch clearance. Since I did this, my shifting performance has
been (so very much better than it had been in a long time.
Although the clutch failure occurred only a short time after I
made the change to the slave cylinder throw, I can't think of any
way that change could have been the cause of the failure.
Won't know for sure, the reason for the clutch failure, "until I
get in there" (the symptoms could be caused by a release bearing,
but I've had one of those, and it caused much noise, which I
don't have now). There are also other suspicious indications
pointing towards the fork.
Anyone else experience a similar problem? Could I be installing
the release fork incorrectly, causing them to break? My first
clutch replacement did last over 70,000, and I didn't break that
fork...
It's been a particularly bad year for me and my Roadster...
Dave
'68 1600
Kailua-Kona
[demime 0.99d.1 removed an attachment of type image/jpeg which had a name of
fork - small]
|