Something's broke with the clutch

[J_Squared]

yea as title says, something is broke, i thought it was the plastic clutch quadrent(sp). i was driving home from work yesterday, and took a detour since there was heavy traffic and such, and when i turned onto one of the road, i was in 2nd, took off to about 4k, and shifted, slowed down, due to a car. and then bam! my foot hit the floor fast, the pedal just gave way. i pressed it again and again, shut car off(like thatd help the clutch or something not like its hydraulic, lol) and back on. nothing, still no resistance, and i couldnt shift, i was stuck in neutral for a while. i managed to make it home by just matching RPM with gear/speed, boy that was fun , grrrrr. i checked this morning and the cabel and the quadrant are fine. i took off the dust cover where the cable meets the lever. and its fine, but the cable is definitly not as tight as is should be. while under there i had someone press the clutch down and the lever moves with the cable, but still cant put into any gear. any idea whatmay be wrong, inside the housing?

btw: stock t-5, stock clutch on 91 GT.

 

[cobradvm]

Probably a stretched cable - if the fork will move when the clutch pedal is pushed down, then the cable is not broken - so most likely stretched - first step is get a new cable - I would do the quadrant and get a firewall adjuster at the same time - go with a ford OEM cable.
If you think the cable is fine, and the fork is moving enough, next on the list is a busted throw out bearing - ie one that has disintegrated - try and look inside the bell housing and see if anything looks out of whack.
Do the cable first, if that doesn't work, probably looking at pulling the tranny

Good luck

Howard

 

[txstang84]

are you sure the quadrant doesn't have a couple of stripped teeth? that's what happened to mine, and i could almost get it disengaged...then it would pop and go straight to the floor.

but yeah, definitely new quadrant...

 

[cobradvm]

Ooops - good point - grab the clutch pedal with your hand and pull it up firmly as far as you can - this will reset the quadrant. When you push the pedal down with your foot, you should hear it rachet, and automatically self adust itself - that might work for you - if not, replace the cable.

 

[HISSIN50]

If you have the plastic quadrant, chances are that it or the cable went south. I would replace it all at once (quadrant, new stock style cable, and a FWA). Helps with diagnostics and future issues.

Just MHO.

Good luck.

 

[J_Squared]

i guess no one here actually read what i typed, i looked at the cable and quadrant and such, it isnt anything with the cable, its in the housing. i asked a friend, and he said probably the clutch fork, he had that problem before on his 91 LX. im starting to work on it now, droppin the tranny/midpipe/Xmember/etc. Iill let y'all know whats happened.

 

[HISSIN50]

Hmmmm, It seemed like you had a lot of freeplay after something let go. I would have dialed in the freeplay to see if it would work again. The chances of the quad/pawl or cable breaking is much greater than a fork issue IMHO (then again, you are the only one lookin at it).

Getting the freeplay dialed-out first would have been my first diagnostic move.

Good luck with it.

 

[cobradvm]

Just curious what your friend said was the problem with clutch fork - its just a big chunk of metal - lots of things are gonna break before something happens to the fork.
The rationale for doing a cable, FWA and quadrant, is they are the most common causes of the symptoms you describe, and they are much easier and cheaper to do then pulling trannies and clutches.

Just my $0.02

Let us know what you find.

 

[J_Squared]

yea def not the cable, just pulled the tranny and the clutch fork/throw-out bearing piece near fell out of the bell housing. just seems its all bent outta shape. dont ask me how it happened, i wasnt even getting on it, just was shifting normally. and while its out the tranny look immaculate. the fluid looks clean and everything, def good for a 100,000 more miles. but yea, im gonna do the clutch while everythings apart, original clutch, 75k miles yea. any suggestions for a decent clutch? nothing major, im not gonna be doing much upgrading for a while. at most an intake, MAF, exhaust. thx.

 

[J_Squared]

everythings apart now, got some pics, here see what u think, other than the meat is off the clutch, everything seems ok i guess. of course i dont know what all these things are supposed to look like normally, well not exactly.

Clutch Fork
Clutch Disc
Pressure Plate 1
Pressure Plate 2

looks ok i guess??

this is my first time on doing the clutch so any help would be appreciated. thx.

 

[Mysterio]

First of all, The clutch Disk is supposed to be in one piece. You CANNOT put that back into your car. It's hard to tell but it looks like you had a decent ammount of life left on the clutch apart from it breaking apart.


I bought a king cobra clutch when my stock clutch went, very happy with it. It grips great. I can drop the clutch and it'll spin the tires without a bit of hesitation.


Make sure you mark which way was down on the old flywheel when you take it off so you know which way to put the new one back on. If you don't have the weight in the right position it will throw the entire car outa wack.

 

[philly029]

You can't put the flywheel on the wrong way. The bolt holes are asymetrically spaced to only go on one way, but marking it will make it easier to line up the holes the first time. Also, get a new pilot bearing while you are at it. It is located in the crank where the small part of your output shaft rides. They're only like 15 bucks at a parts store, just make sure you get the pilot BEARING not a pilot bushing. Do a search of the forum for instructions on replacing it.

That's all