clutch lever position

that's a ruler, showing about 1.5", the spring is something I put on recently to mimic the 4 speed set up.
I don't know, Dan's doesn't look much different than mine.
picture

Similar thread

that's a ruler

:doh:

Mine looks "purty" :love: but hell if I know if it works, :hmm2:, still working on the interior of the car before I get it on the road....

Hard to tell

Here is a shot taken from about the same angle as yours:



And another one:



Looking straight down onto the clutch arm I can see that the bow of the clutch arm (at the arrow) is right above the parting line between transmission and bell housing. It looks to me like your clutch arm rests about 1/2", maybe even 3/4" closer to the bell housing than mine.

As you can see, mine (1985) has the late arrangement with a spring pulling the clutch arm towards the bell housing, opposite of how it is on earlier cars. In the photos the arm is as far right as it goes without stepping on the clutch pedal; I can not push it farther right by hand.

A few more shots for reference:







Dampness is from spilling brake fluid (while bleeding)

Thanks!
Mine seems tweaked then. I have no slave rod poking through the lever, and if I manually push the lever to where the bearing contacts the plate, the slave rod will actually fall out. Even if tweaked, it did work so I will attempt to make it work again via bleeding and adjustment, failing that I will probably try to externally mod the lever before I go through the joy of gearbox removal again.

jvandyke said:

<snip>
failing that I will probably try to externally mod the lever before I go through the joy of gearbox removal again.

Click to expand...

I think it would be less total cost and effort to get a new release shaft from one of our vendors (I couldn't find on at either FiatPlus or Midwest-Bayless, but I'm sure they could dig one up you you give them a call)

If it kind of worked before but not any more, maybe the release shaft is getting progressively more tweaked?

jvandyke said:

<snip> if I manually push the lever to where the bearing contacts the plate, the slave rod will actually fall out.

Click to expand...

If you insist on improvising, and at the risk of sounding vulgar, I would suggest a longer rod.

jvandyke said:

<snip> Evidence of lever hitting bell housing.

Click to expand...

If the lever is hitting the bell housing, there probably isn't much you can do in terms of mods and improvisations. Cut of the lever and re-weld it in the right position? Have to get the shaft out of the transmission to do that, so replacing would be more appealing than repairing.

I decided to try the mod mentioned here. Since I didn't have much to lose and I really wanted to take the thing to MetroCruise tomorrow.
So I first tried bleeding like a mad fool with my son. No improvement. I cut the arm with cut off wheel on my dremel about 85% through, put a big steel bar up against the lever as a drift and used a sledge hammer through the trunk access hole to tap it over about 1.5 inches, got a hunk of steel plate, drilled holes and bolted the plate on. Clutch pedal felt great, releasing/engaging right in the middle of the stroke. Test drive and all seems well. :dance2::dance2::dance2: Now will this hold up? Probably not.:hmm2:

Congrats on getting a working clutch back! Seems pretty clear that the lever/fork relationship was the issue!

Yah, pretty happy for the moment.

You are like a dog on a rag Jeff

You just don't give up. I hope the fix holds. Maybe you can add some welds on it to assist the bolts?

Yet another reason to learn to weld.
I will fix it right the next time the gearbox has to come out IF this thing lasts that long otherwise I do it sooner.:dead:

Perhaps you can pull into a welding shop and have them hit it in the car?

If you had the additive plate on the bottom they could fill the void from above. I know access is a bit tight , if you pull the air intake hoses, air cleaner and reposition the coolant reservoir they should be able to get at it.

Just a thought

Karl

Metrocruise success. Even took the poor thing up and down the strip which on a 92 degree day in bumper to bumper traffic with LOTS of clutch work is a real test of cooling system and clutch! Darn near killed me! It's about 6 miles one way and very slow, taking about 40 minutes. Very very cool though, lots of amazing cars everywhere you look. I was proud to have a Fiat running with them all. Hung out with the FLU and Alfa folks a bit, great bunch of people and cool cars. She did start to get hot on the highway home, which after what it just went through on the strip is pretty weird. I will check my lever "repair" later to see if anything loosened or bent. I think time will make the bolt holes wallow out or something, there's quite a bit of force there, no?
Just got back in from a quick eyeball check and all looks great.
BTW clutch action seems stellar, almost TOO responsive, my foot was gett'n tired!

Great news!

No reason your mod should fail unless the bolts loosen - that's when ovalling of the holes would occur, I believe. Possibly the notched lever would snap where it was bent outward if movement developed between it & the support bracket. Any pics of the modded bracket?

I will snap a picture sometime. Looks just like this.


I'm a bit put off by the amount of slag stuck to the drain plug magnet, there was just as much as the second drain as the first.

Here's a picture. I moved the lever "back" about 1". Judging by some others' pictures I really should back it up another 1/2". First bad fuzzy photo is where T/O started to contact plate. Second one is where it does now.


after

Still not happy with clutch operation. Last inch of pedal is where all the action takes place and though it works just don't like the feel of it. Decided to play with it last night and attempted to redo my mod for even more "bend" but didn't move it much, ended up the same. Removed the pedal stop, bleed the system (although I never cracked it open, I lost the pedal completely at one point.
Bottom line is I have to extend the adjustment on the slave rod all the way out, almost nothing sticking out other side of lever. (see picture above)
Makes me wonder if I don't have a mis matched part or slave is put on wrong. The bracket only goes one way, I know you can put it fore/aft of the "tab" on the gearbox but I think it only works one way. This picture shows lots of rod sticking out with the spring thing and all, I don't have anywhere near that despite the clutch lever being moved. Ideas? I'll check the position of the slave against pictures later today, probably really late.



BTW
there is a lot of slop in the lever, there's tons of play before the lever actually makes the TO bearing touch the pressure plate, I assume that's normal? I'm trying to set it up so all (but a fraction) of that play is dialed out but by then the clutch system is out of travel on full pedal. I suppose I could just mock up an extended clutch slave rod to test things, just a threaded rod would suffice for testing I suppose

4th picture down, I have WAY more exposed rod between the slave and the lever but lever looks like it's about the same position, meaing the slave may be mounted wrong......
http://xwebforums.org/showpost.php?p=150550&postcount=44

I can take some reference pics of my lever/ Slave positioning tomorrow, if it could help . Don't understand why you have slop in the lever, there shouldn't be. It is certainly possible that your ( internal, not the external one you modified) t/o brg lever is moving on the vertical arm, if the roll pin or whatever secures the pivot lever to the vertical rod is buggered.

I made a longer rod and it does feel better. Not going to worry about it. Something is fishy but it works okay so I'm good.