Clutch

I had a real time with mine a while back, but finally got it right. I don't see how you have no free play. From what you are saying, it seems that the adjustable stop post may be too close. Maybe your arm stop post needs to be taken off and moved back one link toward the rear of the car to allow some more room for movement & adjustment. If your adjustable bolt on the slave is near the eye, there should be some free play there to start with. Have you checked Mike's site below?
http://www.panteraplace.com/page124.htm

Adjust the length of the slave rod to the clevis so you can just feel a *timy* bit of play. The stop-bar is a joke that does almost nothing. After you get a bit of free play, have someone mash the pedal to the floor while you stick a feeler gauge thru the bellhousing access hole. The feeler will go between the flywheel & clutch plate. You should be able to get a 0.040" gauge in there. If not, you may need to change to a long-throw slave or take a chance on wearing out the very expensive synchros in your ZF. This may be why the previous owner adjusted the clutch to no-play, which will then wear out the throwout bearing & may cause slippage. The grinding into reverse is probably a mis-adjusted shift lever. The procedure is in your red owners manual; follow it exactly & things will be smoother. All vendors including PIM have long-throw slaves in iron or no-corrode stainless steel.

But he says his slave is already adjusted "all the way down to the eye" and he has no play (which to me seems like maximum loosness and maximum play should result). Maybe he means the bolt on the slave is at the eye, but the actual stop mechanism on the slave is too over extended from the slave because the prior owner had adjusted the bolt too high, pushing the rod too far out (no play). So maybe he loosend the bolt down toward the eye but the stop within the slave did not automatically losen and go back within the slave, thus still causing no play. Maybe he needs to adjust the rod first so that it goes up higher within the slave? I took my rod off of the adjustable post at the eye, then screwed the post up within the slave, and then put it all back together, resulting in a bunch of play to start. Then after that, began screwing the bolt higher up the slave post causing less and less play as I went higher.

To make myself clearer, Jack, what I mean is that, after disconnecting the slave rod from the clevis, there is no free movement whatsoever fore or aft. Only by exerting a strong effort with a wrench on the clevis (which I assume is the lever on the shaft coming out of the tranny)can I get any movement toward the rear of the car. I've tried making the slave bolt longer (3.106 per manual) but it makes the situation worse.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jack derykeAny green-stri:
Adjust the length of the slave rod to the clevis so you can just feel a *timy* bit of play. The stop-bar is a joke that does almost nothing. After you get a bit of free play, have someone mash the pedal to the floor while you stick a feeler gauge thru the bellhousing access hole. The feeler will go between the flywheel & clutch plate. You should be able to get a 0.040" gauge in there. If not, you may need to change to a long-throw slave or take a chance on wearing out the very expensive synchros in your ZF. This may be why the previous owner adjusted the clutch to no-play, which will then wear out the throwout bearing & may cause slippage. The grinding into reverse is probably a mis-adjusted shift lever. The procedure is in your red owners manual; follow it exactly & things will be smoother. All vendors including PIM have long-throw slaves in iron or no-corrode stainless steel.

---

Wow, your arm is that close to the post? Then maybe we are back to the other scenario, maybe your arm stop post needs to be taken off and moved back one link toward the rear of the car to allow some more room for free play movement & adjustment? (it was made with this adjustment ability, so I would think it serves some function). Mine actually had too much freeplay, so I took the arm off, moved it forward one notch, and then made the fine adjustments from there.

It sounds like you are saying, that with nothing connected to the arm it can only be moved to the front and that the throw out bearing is hitting the clutch fingers at that point. If that is the case, someone has most likely installed the wrong clutch pressure plate or throw out bearing.

Sorry,

Mike

I'm afraid you're probably right, Mike. I discovered this when I tried to follow your directions for adjusting the clutch, but found that when I applied any pressure to the crescent wrench I was bending the tang! It was that hard to move. Just no freeplay at all. I guess I've been lucky that something has broken. I'm going to try and get a pro to look at it in the next few days.
Thanks for the comeback.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mike Dailey:
It sounds like you are saying, that with nothing connected to the arm it can only be moved to the front and that the throw out bearing is hitting the clutch fingers at that point. If that is the case, someone has most likely installed the wrong clutch pressure plate or throw out bearing.

Sorry,

Mike

---