Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing 5 speed clutch

Greetings all .... as I progress with the rebuild I've got to the point where I can take the bulk of the car (minus wings and bonnet) for a trundle down the track to test all the mechanics out ... the engine runs smoothly and the brakes and steering seem to work just fine.


Only issue is the clutch doesn't fully disengage ..... new friction plate, pressure plate and thrust bearing fitted .... the clutch is cable actuated and I've adjusted out all the play I dare (don't want to be pre-loading the thrust bearing) .... lots of posibilities for me to check, but before I go any deeper can anyone here with a cable operated crossflow car measure how far the clutch release arm (white arrowed in pic) moves when the clutch is depressed

I suspect the geometry of the pedal etc has changed during complete strip down and rebuild but I don't want to chase that down to the point where I put over-much pressure on the release fingers of the pressure plate by having excessive release arm movement.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers

K

Have you got the clutch plate in the right way round?

Arwyn

I would expect the clutch arm to be closer to that position when fully released assuming pic shows resting position. This such there is max mechanical advantage as pedal is operated, i.e. when at right angle to cable pull.

The pedal quadrant in the engine bay hasn't been welded back on in the wrong position has it?
They have a habit of snapping off

I've considered all these (along with whether the thrust bearing and clutch fingers are of the compatible type) .... won't start serious delving until I'm sure I'm getting the right amount of cable pull .... just want to make sure what the normal travel is on the lever to disengage the clutch as a starting point .... will move on to the 'engine-out' stuff when I'm sure I have to ! 😁

K

K, I could be entirely incorrect in my thinking, but I seem to remember having a discussion with Colin, AKA Spanner Juggler, about this subject many years ago in relation to my then Ford P100 pick up truck, it too was five speed.

The issue as best I can remember was that the pedal arrangement had some sort of auto adjustment built in which ensured that the there was zero play in the cable and that the release bearing was constantly running, though not under pressure...!!! Having grown up when clutch cables always were adjusted to have circa 1/8th inch free play, I was left confused.

The only thing I could arrive at was that such had the volume of traffic grown that folk were often inching along and riding the clutch and wearing out release bearings which then encouraged the design of bearings that could run constantly without issue...?

Having fitted a new clutch and release bearing, it ran for years without issue until I scrapped it... Go figure..

More than happy to be corrected and further educated...

Cheers Luddite .... the Morgan just has a 'dumb' pedal arrangement .... rod from the pedal to a bellcrank pivoted on the crossmember under the bonnet that pulls the cable .... nothing fancy.

As Richard says above the position of the arm looks a little suspect now it's in the car but I'm reserving judgement til I know there's enough cable pull to start with.

Unless someone's played with the lever lengths on the bellcrank then the pedal will need to come further out than I'd like to give me more cable pull before it hits the bulkhead.

But cable pull is the basis of it all, so still after the measurement.

Many thanks for all the ideas so far ... plenty to think about



K

Thats why I went for a hydraulic conversion when I did the 5 speed conversion on my 4/4, saved all the aggro with bell cranks and the like .

Arwyn

Indeed ... may go for hydraulic sometime down the road .... my thinking is that lever movement will be useful for working out my problem as it's the key interface of the system ..... too little and the problem's probably external (fingers crossed) .... if it's right, then the problem is probably internal so I'll need to steel myself for pulling the lump out from the car (unless the friction plate is stuck to the flywheel as it's been sat for a few months, in which case I may be able to free it)

K

Panic not, or at least not yet!

On my 1978 4/4 adjustment consisted of pulling outer casing of cable ,as seen in your photo, as far forward as possible until ALL SLACK was adjusted out, and then tightening the two nuts down to the bell-housing.
This removal of any free play in the cable at that end seemed counter-intuitive, but was totally the correct method.

Please try it, and see how you get on.

Andrew
Glorious Devon (especially today)