I have a rather unusual problem that came on all of a sudden. I have a 302 Ford attached to an Audi 016 transaxle using a Kennedy adapter. I have used this set up for about 1500 miles with no problems. I went to drive the car and it wouldn’t easily go into gear. It seemed that the clutch was not fully disengaging. I checked the reservoir, Full. No loose mounting bolts at the master cylinder. The linkage was ok. I looked through the inspection hole on the side of the transaxle, and the pressure plate appears to be tight.
I then decided to adjust the clutch pedal to get more travel. Upon doing this the clutch was again working. However, there seems to be part of the travel used up to push the throw out bearing against the diaphragm springs (or perhaps take up slack?). This part of the travel is fairly low resistance. I can tell that the throw out bearing is engaged because as soon as I start to press on the clutch pedal I can hear the throw out bearing spin. Then after a certain amount of travel the clutch pedal gets markedly harder to push and it appears that this is when the clutch is actually disengaging. The clutch has always required quite a bit of pressure to disengage, but this seems even more than usual. I have also just redone my seat cushion, and it is possible that my seating position has changed just enough to make the clutch feel funny, but I doubt it. Could there be a broken spring in the slave cylinder which allows the piston to retract too much? Any ideas anyone?
I then decided to adjust the clutch pedal to get more travel. Upon doing this the clutch was again working. However, there seems to be part of the travel used up to push the throw out bearing against the diaphragm springs (or perhaps take up slack?). This part of the travel is fairly low resistance. I can tell that the throw out bearing is engaged because as soon as I start to press on the clutch pedal I can hear the throw out bearing spin. Then after a certain amount of travel the clutch pedal gets markedly harder to push and it appears that this is when the clutch is actually disengaging. The clutch has always required quite a bit of pressure to disengage, but this seems even more than usual. I have also just redone my seat cushion, and it is possible that my seating position has changed just enough to make the clutch feel funny, but I doubt it. Could there be a broken spring in the slave cylinder which allows the piston to retract too much? Any ideas anyone?
