Clutch Cable install

Are you on the forward-most hook?

Did you remove the rubber grommet before installing the FWA? Is the FWA turned CW all the way?

You might find assistance in Jeremy Thompson's article.



Good luck.

subscribing.. i have the same problem, i could get the cable on the fork with some force but the cable is by far too short causing the pressure plate never to fully engage with the clutch (car doesn't move even with the foot off the clutch pedal in gear)

glad you figured out your problem, for some reason the stock cable is still too short for me even when the fwa is completely in clockwise and the cable is on the closest hook to the firewall (steeda 2-hook quadrant) anyone have an explanation?

I had a feeling about the FWA not having been turned in. Glad to hear it was so simple.

91Stang, pulling up on the clutch pedal wont work for you. I'd double check that the Steeda does not require the use of an adjustable (longer) cable. I thought I recalled reading that was a concern.

Good luck.

sorry to bring this back from the dead, but i have a few questions.

first, how long should it take to install a new cable, FWA, and quadrant?

second, i followed the link that hissin posted above, is that the best way to do it?

third, i have the steeda setup (cable, quadrant, FWA) anyone have any experience with this setup? any helpful hints?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

bump! please someone help me?

Install time, assuming you're going from a totally stock quad/cable setup to aftermarket, should be less than two hours. Depends on how much of a fight that stupid little top quadrant pawl puts up in coming out - sometimes you gotta saw/break it to get it out, sometimes you can just maneuver the bugger out. Last one I did (on Frankenstang's Capri) would have taken less than an hour, but we had to bore out the hole in the firewall a bit with a Dremel because it was about 1/8" too small in diameter for the UPR firewall adjuster to poke in there.

Pleeeeeease tell me you're not going to be installing an adjustible clutch cable. A multi-hook quad + FWA + NON-adjustible stock cable are THE way to go; an adjustible cable will almost ALWAYS wind up snapping on you someday, usually down by the clutch fork end. Re-use your stock cable (unless it's stretched out/broken/frayed) and just install the FWA and new quad, and you'll be glad you did.

thanks for the advice. i have not looked under there yet to check the condition of the cable, but a couple months ago is was perfectly fine. its just the past couple days i have had to almost stand on the clutch pedal to change gears.

sorry to sound like a noob, but how can i tell the difference between an adjustable cable and a non-adjustable cable?

is the link to the installation above a pretty good guide, or would you(or anyone) recommend anything else?

I can't view the link here from work for some reason, but essentially the hardest part is getting the old clutch quadrant pawl out. The stock plastic quad is two pieces: the big quad piece, itself, which looks a similar to the metal aftermarket piece, and the little upper baby quad thingy known as the pawl.

The quad assembly is on the accelerator pedal side, not directly above the clutch pedal where you'd expect it to be. Obviously, you first want to unhook the cable from the quadrant - pretty self-explanatory step, once you look at it. Then push off the hairpin clips with a screwdriver or pair of needlenose pliers (or your fingers, if you've got beefy fingertips), then first slip off the big quad piece. There will be an extra spring attached to it that will make a snap or BOI-OI-OI-OING! noise when you get it off - don't worry, you won't need it, and in fact you can pretty much just discard the spring and quad once you remove them. DO NOT throw away the hairpin clips, though, as you'll need those to hold the new quad on.

The upper pawl quad piece is a turd because 1. that spring attached to it is a bugger to slip off in order to make it let go of the little turd (usually a long flathead screwdriver works best for me on that), and 2. there's not enough room to the side to just slip the thing off the post it's mounted upon. Usually, you can pull down the carpet behind the pedals enough to be able to push the clutch pedal allllllllllll the way down as far as you can possibly get it, and then slip that pawl over the top of the big metal support piece that's in the way - you might also have to rotate the pawl upside-down to get it to slip over. Otherwise, you've gotta take a little saber-saw blade on a handle or somehow otherwise clip/snip/cut/saw the big round "ear" off that pawl to get it to flip over and slip off the end of the shaft it's mounted on. Again, it's hard to explain without any visual aid, but you'll see what I mean when you get under there.

A lot of guys insist you have to pull the front seat out completely to do it. I never have. I just slide it back as far as it'll go, and I'm all good. Then again, I'm kind of a skinny little runt.

Adjustible cables have a long threaded end and two nuts (uhhh-huh huh) on the clutch fork end of the cable - a large nut with a rounded end and a thinner jam nut to secure it in place. This is the end that tends to break on them. It's just a crappy design, plus the cable, itself, tends to be made a lot more flimsy than the Ford cables. Unless you can re-use your stock cable (you might be lucky and perhaps just the plastic quadrant has turned brittle and broken some teeth), I'd VERY strongly recommend getting a "universal" Ford OEM non-adjustible cable - Maximum Motorsports has them for around $75 shipped.

Hope this helps!

another question(for anyone). if the cable and/or teeth are ok and just needs a quick adjustment underneath the car, can i just do that until i have more time this weekend to switch everything over?

what is the proper way to adjust the cable underneath? do i just take off the dust shield and then adjust the nut there?

thanks again everyone!

genericstang said:

another question(for anyone). if the cable and/or teeth are ok and just needs a quick adjustment underneath the car, can i just do that until i have more time this weekend to switch everything over?

what is the proper way to adjust the cable underneath? do i just take off the dust shield and then adjust the nut there?

thanks again everyone!

Click to expand...

If you have the OEM components, there is no undercar adjustment. You pull up on the clutch pedal to try to achieve a self-adjustment. The next best you could do is shim the sheath at the Firewall, and if doing that, it's easier to install new parts.

Good luck.

oh ok. i was under the impression that there was something that could be done underneath at the fork area. thanks for the help.

btw if you or anyone has a good pictures of the actual install and/or in-car pictures of where everything is located that would be a great help.

thanks again!

ok update:

well i took a look underneath the dash to see if anything was going on there. it looks like somebody already installed some type of aftermarket quadrant.(bought the car from a friend of a friend a couple years ago with no problems until now) i cant really see which one it is though. also noticed while feeling around that the cable is quite loose when and i could easily slide it off the quadrant if i wanted to. so im guessing my problem is something with the cable itself? not sure though, but thats my guess. the pins are still there.

the setup i have is the adjustable cable, firewall adjuster, and double hook quadrant from steeda. if anyone has experience with this setup, please chime in.
speaking about the kit though, i think it was suppose to come with a plastic washer for the quadrant, which i dont have. is it suppose to come with one?

anymore advice anyone?

::sighs::

Plastic washer? What for? Shouldn't need one at all; if it's squeaking, just put a dab of silicone on the post it pivots upon, and you'll be fine.

Can you determine if the quadrant you have on there has more than one hook? If not, then you'll still need your Steeda quad; a lot of single-hook quads don't have the hook far enough back to use a non-adjustible cable, so you won't quite be able to hook it over there in most cases.

Also, have you taken a look at your existing cable on the clutch fork end of the cable? You can determine whether you've already got an adjustible cable or not by the fork end's design - see if it looks like the same end as your Steeda cable. If it is, you can buy yourself a little bit of time by tightening down the nut on the clutch fork end of the cable to take some slack out of the line. The tighter the cable (the less slack left in it), then the higher on the pedal your clutch will engage.

Loose cable = clutch engages closer to the floor.
Tight cable = clutch engages higher.

Unfortunately, though, tightening up the cable will eventually lead your present cable to stretch out that much more and, ultimately, you're going to get that dreaded SNAP! that will leave you grinding the crap out of your synchros and struggling just to get your car into one last gear just so you can get home. Sure, you can install the adjustible Steeda cable to remedy the problem for now - you won't even need to install the firewall adjuster, that's just a totally redundant piece to have when you've already got an adjustible cable - but ultimately you're going to get the same stretching-out and eventual catastrophic cable failure, if not the addition of a harder pedal because those cables also tend to bind up.

Again, the formula for clutch cable nirvana:

OEM Ford cable (or "universal" Ford cable, sold through MM) + FWA + aluminum multi-hook quad =

genericstang said:

ok update:

well i took a look underneath the dash to see if anything was going on there. it looks like somebody already installed some type of aftermarket quadrant.(bought the car from a friend of a friend a couple years ago with no problems until now) i cant really see which one it is though. also noticed while feeling around that the cable is quite loose when and i could easily slide it off the quadrant if i wanted to. so im guessing my problem is something with the cable itself? not sure though, but thats my guess. the pins are still there.

the setup i have is the adjustable cable, firewall adjuster, and double hook quadrant from steeda. if anyone has experience with this setup, please chime in.
speaking about the kit though, i think it was suppose to come with a plastic washer for the quadrant, which i dont have. is it suppose to come with one?

anymore advice anyone?

::sighs::

Click to expand...

I think you're talking about spacers that shim the quadrant laterally on its pegs. This would be to center the quad with the hole in the firewall. Take a look under there and see if the cable goes straight to the firewall. It should, since physics self-centers the quadrant. I ran without shims and it was self centered (I even set it up off center to see if it would center itself and it did). I now run spacers (for the rest of my comparison) and it made no difference in my case.

Good luck.

well i pulled everything apart a little while ago(easier then i thought) and found out the my cable was "barely hanging on by a thread", but in the literal sense it really was. so im just going to install the new cable for now and worry about the rest later this weekend.


when installing the adjustable cable(for now) how are the two nuts suppose to be installed?

which direction should the rounded end be facing and on which side of the clutch fork?

which side should the other nut be installed on?

then how do i adjust?

sorry to bother everyone for their help again, but it much appreciated and has helped me greatly.

Regarding the cable nuts, the rounded-end nut goes on first, with the rounded part closest to the clutch fork. The other nut (the jam nut) goes on behind it. Pull the cable just snug (not TIGHT) to take out the slack and finger-tighten the rounded nut up to the clutch fork. Now, while holding that nut in its position with one wrench, spin the jam nut up against it and tighten it up against the first nut with another wrench - not God-awful tight, but enough that it holds the thing from backing itself off.

Now, with the car back on the ground and everything, start 'er up, put it in first or reverse, and see if you feel the pedal engages the clutch too high or too low. If you've already installed it, use the firewall adjuster to fine-tune it without having to shut the car off, bust out the jackstands again, and play with wrenches; otherwise, every time you want to fine-tune your adjustment, you'll have to crawl under the car, loosen the jam nut, screw the rounded nut down or back it off (depending on if you've got it too tight or too loose), and then re-tighten the jam nut against it. The fact that the adjustible cable AND firewall adjuster mean you have TWO variables to fart around with just makes it a lot more complicated than its worth, which is another reason why I recommend a NON-adjustible cable and a FWA - periodic or random adjustments are a LOT easier and faster.

Again, use the following rule of thumb for determining how high or low you want your pedal to engage/disengage the clutch:

MORE slack = clutch engages with pedal closer to floor.
LESS slack = clutch engages with pedal higher from floor.