[T3] Clutch question
Jimmy Lingenfelter
jimmyandcher at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 29 10:55:17 PST 2011
According to him, he did NOT remove the pedal assembly. When I asked him about it, he told me there had actually been times when he was driving the car that the clutch pedal would fall back toward the floor, so apparently it had been that way when he purchased the car (just 6 months ago). He is brand new to VWs, and new to working on cars period, so sometimes getting him to describe things over the phone in a way I can understand is difficult. He lives in my neighborhood, but I was just too busy to go take a look for myself during this clutch episode. I DID, however, adjust the clutch for him 6 months ago when he bought the car.... the clutch was engaging completely with the pedal just off the floor, so I adjusted that for him and showed him how..... didn't notice anything strange with the cable or pedal at that time.
________________________________
From: Jim Adney <jadney at vwtype3.org>
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: [T3] Clutch question
On 26 Nov 2011 at 11:28, James Lingenfelter wrote:
> a friend of mine just replaced the clutch in his '70 Beetle. Now that
> it's back together with the motor in, the clutch cable is 2-3" too
> short to reach the arm. How is this possible? One thing that sounds
> fishy to me is that he says he can rotate the clutch pedal all the
> way BACKWARD onto the floor TOWARD the driver seat. Isn't there
> something within the pedal assembly that should absolutely prevent
> this? Is there something screwed up in the pedal assembly?
I've read the full discussion and its resolution and still don't have
a perfect understanding of what happened here.
If the pedal cluster had been removed, it would be easy to put it
back in on the wrong side of the stop, so that it just flopped
backwards. The usual result of this is that the cable unhooks and is
then inactive and "too long", if anything. You never told us whether
he had removed the pedal cluster for some reason, nor what was done
to "fix" the pedal stop.
Normally, to replace the clutch, there would be no reason to remove
the pedal cluster, nor to remove the cable from the clutch lever on
the side of the transmission, so there's a LOT of missing info on
what happened when this friend decided to replace his clutch. My
guess is that, as a beginner, he decided to take a bunch of stuff
apart that turned out to be unnecessary, perhaps because he thought
it might be necessary, or perhaps because he was thinking to be more
thorough and lubricate the cable as long as he was doing this job.
Either way, he probably bolted the pedal cluster back in place with
the pedal on the wrong side of the stop, which is a LOT easier that
putting it on the right side. I'm guessing that in this process, the
cable fell off the hook inside the tunnel and, instead of falling
completely clear, got caught up in a way that I fail to find words to
describe. Let's just say that I can imagine a way that would still
provide a very small amount of cable motion, but would shorten the
length by a lot.
When he took the cluster apart the second time, he found the cable
unhooked, but didn't realize that it shouldn't look like that.
Nevertheless, he hooked it back up and, by paying attention to the
stop, he installed the cluster again without unhooking the cable.
And now it all works as it should.
Would you mind checking with your friend and finding out if he
removed the pedal cluster while replacing the clutch? I'm kind of
curious as to why he did this.
If he didn't, then why did he detach the cable from the throwout arm
in the first place?
--
*******************************
Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
*******************************
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