Hi Carol.
Save some money and don't replace the cylinders. Or, rather, test them
first... there is a way, with everything still installed, to determine for
certain whether the problem is outside the gearbox (hydraulics) or inside.
I'm betting that your cylinders are fine. Here's what you do:
Put the car up on stands. Get a ruler and hold it alongside of the pushrod
at the slave cylinder and notice where on the ruler the pin falls.
(Talking about the pin that fastens the pushrod to that lever that comes
down from the gearbox) Now, have someone operate the pedal slowly. I
should point out that the pin should be in the CENTER hole on that lever.
Watch that pin and notice how far it travels along the ruler. It should
move about 5/8 of an inch if the hydraulics are working properly. Betcha
it does. This measurement is kind of tricky to get... you'll probably have
to fiddle with it a bit to figure out the best way for you to do it. Once
you've got it down, take three measurements just to be safe. If it doesn't
move that far, then yes, the problem is in the hydraulics. However, since
we're using very crude tools to measure by, that measurement better be off
by quite a bit... If it's within 1/8 of an inch of 5/8 either way, I'd call
it 5/8. I'd also guess that if the hydraulics were the problem, you'd
probably find fluid spilling out somewhere.
There. Now you know where the problem is. Let me know if I'm right.
Someone else mentioned the linkage at the pedal in an earlier response, and
that's certainly worth looking into. However, I doubt you'll find that to
be any more than a contributing factor. In other words, I don't think that
the linkage could be solely responsible for the clutch not disengaging.
Did you say that Sybill had been sitting for a while? I have heard of
clutch disks rusting or otherwise sticking furiously to the flywheel after
periods of non-use. In which case, everything is working, linkage and all,
just perfectly and yet the clutch will not disengage. This happened on my
Datsun B210 after sitting for a couple years. To break it loose, I just
rolled it onto pavement (for traction) and tried to start it in gear. But,
I have heard of people having to take the gearbox out finally just to free
the clutch disk from the flywheel in these situations.
Hope this all helps!
Pete Chadwell
P.S. I just read the other posts AFTER writing the above, and I'm starting
to like the stuck clutch scenario.
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