Fishy or Faulty?
Discussion
Hi all, I just wanted to run this by the experts here to see what you think. Last saturday I parked my Cerb after a drive through town. Sunday afternoon, put the gear in neutral and started the car ( I always park it in gear ). Now, when trying to put it in 1st, the clutch was gone, i.e. the pedal had very little resistance.
Car was towed, and now the garage claims the clutch need replacing since the fingers have gone. Is this possible? Can the fingers work 1 second , enabling me to disengage the gear while the next second they're gone?
It sounds fishy to me, but I'm not a mechanic.
All thoughts appriated.
Edwin.
p.s. worh noting as well was that when looking underneath the car I noticed a cable, about 5mm thick, hanging underneath the engine bay, passenger side. Something I never noticed before.
Car was towed, and now the garage claims the clutch need replacing since the fingers have gone. Is this possible? Can the fingers work 1 second , enabling me to disengage the gear while the next second they're gone?
It sounds fishy to me, but I'm not a mechanic.
All thoughts appriated.
Edwin.
p.s. worh noting as well was that when looking underneath the car I noticed a cable, about 5mm thick, hanging underneath the engine bay, passenger side. Something I never noticed before.
Edited by v8ed on Friday 7th November 15:02
v8ed said:
Hi all, I just wanted to run this by the experts here to see what you think. Last saturday I parked my Cerb after a drive through town. Sunday afternoon, put the gear in neutral and started the car ( I always park it in gear ). Now, when trying to put it in 1st, the clutch was gone, i.e. the pedal had very little resistance.
Car was towed, and now the garage claims the clutch need replacing since the fingers have gone. Is this possible? Can the fingers work 1 second , enabling me to disengage the gear while the next second they're gone?
It sounds fishy to me, but I'm not a mechanic.
All thoughts appriated.
Edwin.
Sounds more like a hydraulic problem to me but I'm no expert so probably best wait for one of them Car was towed, and now the garage claims the clutch need replacing since the fingers have gone. Is this possible? Can the fingers work 1 second , enabling me to disengage the gear while the next second they're gone?
It sounds fishy to me, but I'm not a mechanic.
All thoughts appriated.
Edwin.
I'm going to say fishy. It's common for the fingers to break off the diaphragm but not all at once. If you have very little resistance its 99.99999999999% more probable that it's a hydraulic leak. However!! If the leak is in the slave cylinder and your clutch has done a fair few miles, say 20k then it would be a very wise precaution to change the clutch at the same time even though that isn't your fault at the moment.
Previous owner was Mark, car was on TVR 14X license then ( changed to plain one now ) . Clutch went in on 20k, car is on 36 now.
Would there be a way of getting a "2nd opinion" on this matter ? Not from you ( I'm in London ) but just generally speaking? How would a layman like me be expected to deal w/ this sort of matter, short from coughing up the cash?
Would there be a way of getting a "2nd opinion" on this matter ? Not from you ( I'm in London ) but just generally speaking? How would a layman like me be expected to deal w/ this sort of matter, short from coughing up the cash?
oo Mark's car, that was a really nice one good colour combination and very reliable
As for what's happened on your car .. well you could go and inspect the parts when they are out of the car .. look at the diaphragm spring on the clutch (looks like a fan shape of metal prongs/fingers that the release bearing pushes against) .. get hold of each prong/finger and give it a good push/pull and see if it feels firmly attached to the rest of the spring. If they're all intact and none of them feel weak or break off in your hand then the clutch isn't the problem. Also look inside the bellhousing and on the reverse side of the bellhousing so you can see both ends of the slave cylinder and see if there's any tell-tale signs of fluid leaking. the only other place fluid can leak really is the clutch master cylinder, so for that look up in the drivers footwell, up the clutch pedal and you will see a rod coming off the pedal that goes into a rubber grommet on the back of what is the master cylinder. check for fluid leaking out of the back of the rubber grommet.
From how you have described it I would expect to see the fingers on the diaphragm all intact (unless you are exceedingly unlucky and all of them have broken off at once, I have only ever seen this happen on one clutch in 12 years so very rare!) or you are more likely to see either fluid leaking from the bellhousing/slave cylinder or from the back of the rubber grommet in the drivers footwell from the master cylinder.
hope that helps.
if that garage will let you take pics and post them here please do
good colour combination and very reliable As for what's happened on your car .. well you could go and inspect the parts when they are out of the car .. look at the diaphragm spring on the clutch (looks like a fan shape of metal prongs/fingers that the release bearing pushes against) .. get hold of each prong/finger and give it a good push/pull and see if it feels firmly attached to the rest of the spring. If they're all intact and none of them feel weak or break off in your hand then the clutch isn't the problem. Also look inside the bellhousing and on the reverse side of the bellhousing so you can see both ends of the slave cylinder and see if there's any tell-tale signs of fluid leaking. the only other place fluid can leak really is the clutch master cylinder, so for that look up in the drivers footwell, up the clutch pedal and you will see a rod coming off the pedal that goes into a rubber grommet on the back of what is the master cylinder. check for fluid leaking out of the back of the rubber grommet.
From how you have described it I would expect to see the fingers on the diaphragm all intact (unless you are exceedingly unlucky and all of them have broken off at once, I have only ever seen this happen on one clutch in 12 years so very rare!) or you are more likely to see either fluid leaking from the bellhousing/slave cylinder or from the back of the rubber grommet in the drivers footwell from the master cylinder.
hope that helps.
if that garage will let you take pics and post them here please do
Mine stopped working overnight. I drove all the way to Warwick in it one day (~100 mile round trip) with no problems. Next day, no gears at all. However, that was the slave cylinder that had gone.
As the car had around 42k on the clock, and I had no idea when (or if) the clutch had been changed (and I couldn't be bothered to search through all the history paperwork
) I had the whole lot done at the same time anyway.
As the car had around 42k on the clock, and I had no idea when (or if) the clutch had been changed (and I couldn't be bothered to search through all the history paperwork
) I had the whole lot done at the same time anyway.Gassing Station | Cerbera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff