Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Very Heavy clutch pedal

I have a 1994 Morgan 4/4 with 1800 Ford Zetec with milage of 21000.
It has always had a very hard to press clutch pedal, but lately seems to be even harder. ( It may be my age). The clutch is cable not hydraulic, I have lubricated the pedal box and wonder if it could be the cable being worn. If I don't fully press the clutch pedal sometimes I can crunch the gears. Any advise would be appreciated. Regards Sarnia

Hi Sarnia,

I had exactly the same issue when I bought mine a few years ago. I went for the pedal box, over-greased every possible part of the system to zero effect. In my case it all came down to an originally badly guided clutch cable of more than a a meter which went all the way from the drivers side (left on my car) passing far in front of the sump to the bellhouse clutch fitment on the other side. That long and wobbly cable eventually wore out until the clutch pedal showed the symptoms you describe. I went through some very poor attempts by a local garage to fix it- resulting in a general overhaul of the gearbox, a new clutch set a.s.o. I learned quite something about Morgan mechanics over a few months.
In hindsight a new, shorter, properly guided clutch cable would have been the end of all trouble. My new shorter cable now runs behind the sump. Clutch works perfectly.

Cheers, Mich

Here's what I think may be happening.

The cars of this era that have a cable-operated clutch use a bell-crank type arrangement to transfer the thrust of the clutch push rod to the pull on the cable to operate the clutch. It is mounted low down on the forward face of the engine bulkhead just next to the brake master cylinder.

The bell crank comprises two arms arranged at 90 degrees to each other, the arms are brazed to the ends of a tube. Over time, the brazing weakens and the angle between the two arms reduces from 90 degrees. This has the effect of reducing both the mechanical advantage and the length of throw, causing the clutch to become heavier and more difficult to disengage.

The cure is to remove the crank, realign the arms to 90 degrees, and weld in a bit more stiffening.

The picture below is of my car at Kevin Vernon's, showing the beefed-up version that he did for my car when he put the new chassis on. The finger pointing at it belongs to none other than SpannerJuggler.

Thought I recognised those dainty fingers . Looks like a good mod from Kevin there Tim

Rather than engineer a method of clutch release I opted for an internal slave system for My +8 Bitsa and ZETEC powered DHC. The downside of this is I must pull the engine/trans if I have problems with the slave. The upside is an easy design and by changing the size of the clutch MC I can very the effort required. Another downside may be cost???

Those nails look far too clean to me..

Seconded on the swap to Hydraulic - Retroford do a kit for T5 box and also Type9/Rocket box.

They may be able to supply a kit for you:

http://www.retro-ford.co.uk/shop/content/type-9-rocket-hydraulic-clutch-release-bearing-kit-bc002

thankyou Mich i will try and purchase a shorter cable ,if i can find a supplier .thanks again. Sarnia

I've just remembered - that's actually my hand, Colin was taking the pictures. I was far too excited to remember to take any photographs myself.

Clutch Diaphram plate hardened, replace full Clutch Kit