My clutch went to the floor this morning..

[munga]

I'm sitting in my sierra (1lt) this morning, warming it up.
I put the clutch in to reverse down the drive and it suddenly gets quieter.
take the clutch out and theres this slight rubbing noise, kinda like dry gears or similar. its kinda grinding, kinda rubbing. Anyway
i try this a few times, trying to determine what it is and POP!
My clutch pedal goes straight to the floor.
"Shit," thinks I. "I've just snapped a clutch cable"
I shut her down and jump out to check the cable, and its still attached to the leverat the gearbox, and the bracket on the engine mount.
I give the lever a yank (not an american) and it moves an inch or so. Wheres the tension gone? What's happened?
AFAIK, the lever pushes the thrust bearing onto the spider, right?
What could I have done? I was late for work so I didn't really check it too thoroughly.

I should add that i did an engine swap on the weekend, and this has been the only hiccup so far.

[Edit: I was in a rush, so maybe I did break the cable, and if theres no cable tension on the lever, maybe it will move a bit.. I'll wait the day out and see what you guys think, before pulling some annual leave to pull that friggin gearbox out again..]

[christover1]

The 1 litre thrust bearing is held on by 2 clips, that resemble paper clips, and have same lack of strength.
Most likely the thrust bearing has come off its runner. This can also happen when thrust bearing seizes.
These clips cost very little, and often do not come with new bearing.
They should be replaced every time you are in there.

Could be cable, if so, centre of cable will pull right out.

Also the lever on side of box can strip the splines, or come loose, or even break, and still look ok from a glance.


christover

[munga]

Cheers Chris. The thrust bearing was replaced about 5000km ago. When we dropped the gearbox, one of those pissy little clips had already fallen off. Looks like I need a better mousetrap there.. Fingers crossed thats what it is.

[RoldIT]

Also could have snapped the pressure plate spring. Not sure what it is called but the ring a finger like springs that splay out to the centre on the pressure plate that the thrust bearing pushes against. When these brake, the spring fingers will collapse and you will have little if no pressure to grab the clutch disk.

If you can get the car in gear, put it in third, give it a bit of revs and drop the clutch while holding your foot on the brake. If it stalls, your OK and it will be something else. If it dosen't stall, I'd say that's you prob.

I used to have this failure on an old Cortina about once a year, pretty sure it was cheap parts as it could not possible have had anything to do with me doing mega circle work.

[munga]

RoldIT, the pedal stayed on the floor so I won't be able to test your pressure plate theory just yet. Either way it looks like I'll be pulling that gearbox again. Geez, I hope its the cable or the lever. Lining the shaft up is a pita.

[RoldIT]

Oh OK, fair enough. That sounds more like cable or fork to me then.

[christover1]

RoldIT, the pedal stayed on the floor so I won't be able to test your pressure plate theory just yet. Either way it looks like I'll be pulling that gearbox again. Geez, I hope its the cable or the lever. Lining the shaft up is a pita.

I use a thick philips screw driver to line clutch up, almost an exact fit, works first go, 75% of the time
And looking thru the hole to check by eye.
Grab an old stuffed gearbox, and pull out the input? shaft, makes a good alignment tool.

christover

[munga]

i used the nozzle off my grease gun.

[christover1]

i used the nozzle off my grease gun.

If the clutch is ok, and it is only the thrust bearing, there will be no need to upset clutch alignment anyway.
heres hoping

christover

[munga]

Yep. Aligning the clutch is easy enough. Laying under the car trying to get the input shaft to line up is the pita part.
I'ts times like this I'm thankful I don't own a bloody patrol or similar tho. Zooky g'box weighs only 20-30kg's. A mate and I extracted the old engine by hand. I love my Suzuki.

[matt mg410]

i agree with cristover about the clips that hold thrust bearing i was given the wrong thrust bearing with my heavy duty clutch kit so i re used my old one, two days later the problem munga described happened occured. if i pumped the pedal a couple of times it would catch and release the clutch , and then on the next pump of the pedal the pedal would go completly limp and not realese at all.

[-Mandy-]

Mine did exactly the same thing after i finished a gymkhana run .
Got in, pushed the clutch in and noticed it didnt feel right, took my foot off and it was flat against the floor .

Thankfully mine was only the clutch cable - it had frayed that much there was just one little strand of the cable still joined that didnt have enough pressure to push it back out.