question about mechanical clutch pedal.

[colbystephens]

yesterday it got really hard to press down - much more than usual. i can hardly get it down far enough to shift. what can cause this type of binding? could this be due to not having greased the fitting on it? if thatwere the case, wouldn't i have noticed a gradual increase in friction, versus an immediate change in the amount of force required to push that pedal down?

 

[Confedneck79K30]

hmm.. unless the rod is cocked inside the fork or against the pedal, id do a visual for obvious things first, its really easy to see without a fender..... lol

 

[colbystephens]

did a visual - nothing out of the ordinary. i'm gonna look again tomorrow.

 

[Confedneck79K30]

bend it or anything bound up in a trail?? did it happen while you were driving? or go out to drive it one day and it happened?

 

[diesel4me]

sounds bad...

I doubt the pedal itself is whats binding..linkage or the fork maybe,or more likely the pressure plate itself had a hemmorage..clutch acting normal otherwise??..chattering,noisy,etc??..the three finger pressure plates are notorious for having one lever fail..

My VW Jetta had those little "anti-rattle" springs in the center of the disc fall out,and get lodged in the diaphram fingers of the pressure plate,and caused the same thing to happen--couldn't get the clutch to release all the way..

You may luck out and have loose bolts holding the tranny or bellhousing on,allowing the tranny to "sag" and possibly cause the clutch to bind up..maybe the throwout bearing is dragging on the collar it rides on too..or perhaps the body shifted, and linkage is rubbing or binding??..

 

[colbystephens]

here's answers/responses to all your replies.

went out one day and it was different. nothing to do with a trail run.

clutch is acting normal otherwise. don't have 3 fingered pressure plate - many fingers.

i can check the tranny bolts, but i doubt if they're loose.

linkage isn't rubbing the body.

 

[Zeus33rd]

Use a flashlight and look into the bellhousing where the fork goes through. Make sure everything looks right in there. Sometimes the fork can pop off the TO bearing or bind half on and off. Happened to me...a section of the part of the TO bearing that retains the fork actually broke off, allowing one side of the fork to slip off the TO bearing. That sucked shiit to fix.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Sounds to me like a bad pressure plate, this is the exact symptom of a bad pressure.

 

[3 on the tree]

Pull the inspection cover. Use some type of spray lube on the collar the TO bearing slides on.

 

[colbystephens]

Sounds to me like a bad pressure plate, this is the exact symptom of a bad pressure.

the pressure plate is new as of a couple months ago... could i have bought a faulty unit? will it continue to work, and just be hard, or...?

 

[4X4HIGH]

Doesn't matter how new it is, any part can fail at ANY time. It won't get any better but it will get worse and ruin your clutch.

 

[Uncle Fester]

My clutch did that to me, and in my case it was the "Z" bar had come loose...or thats what the mech called it. bar goes from frame to bell housing, with a lever on each end of it, one by frame one by bell houseing, and makes everything work. Anyway, the bolt/pivot on the frame side came loose and things went blewwy and clutch sucked to push in. cost me a nut to fix, as in $0.25, and took mech about 15 min total time to do it