To preclude this a few months ago I noticed that my clutch cable was fully adjusted all the way to the end of the thread at the gearbox end. There was no room left for adjustment. Thats how it came to me, but it seemed to work ok. It would shift into reverse without crunching so that told me it was releasing ok and the bite point was at a reasonable distance in the travel of the pedal. Maybe it had the wrong cable fitted or something
Well now I get my gearbox back and my re-faced pressure plate. Spend 2 full days putting it all back together as it was before, finally start it up, and now the clutch is dragging. Grinding into everything. WTF!! Well theres no more adjustment, the clutch release fork is simply hitting the gearbox side cover before the clutch is actually dis-engaging. Disaster. Maybe its the new side cover, maybe the fork arm is bent? God knows...There is no fixing this easily and I had no idea what the issue could be. Something is fundamentally wrong with the setup of the clutch.
After scouring everything I found what I think is the answer. I have never heard of this issue before. Fundamentally the pivot point for the fork arm is out of position because either (or both);
1) There is a plastic bushing/cup that sits in the fork arm pivot point, it has at some point disintegrated, I haven't noticed this even existed, and re-installed it without the bush. The bush will lift the arm off the pivot by a few mm and allow much further travel.
2) The flywheel has been machined down in the past and the pivot point has not been shimmed up accordingly
Both of these will reduce the amount of available travel in the fork arm and cause it to bottom out against the diff side cover before releasing the clutch.
The only reason I can think it is dragging now and wasn't before is because the pressure plate has been built back up about 1mm which is causing the dragging.
Unfortunately this means the entire lot has to come back out to install a £2 bush and a washer or two under the pivot ball. The only positives are that it is an inexpensive fix and that I have noticed the issue straight away, a dragging clutch would have made short work of my rebuilt gearbox synchros. Indeed its probably why the synchros were knackered in the first place. This and the fact that its all a learning curve and learning how these things work is all part of the game (so I keep telling myself).
Below is the fork arm at rest against the pressure plate, you can see there is barely any clearance to the side cover to actuate the clutch.
Oh well, first world problems and all that.
Would be interested to know if anyone else has come up against this issue?
also I got a hockey puck for my steering wheel. I just need my 380mm wheel to finish being recovered by Johnathan to have the desired combo. Plus I got a new sticker from Ralph (thanks Ralph!)
