Hi all,

I did a search but could not find an answer to this particular problem.
My friend’s 1976 911S Targa has a clutch problem.

He was driving it out of a park and had foot on clutch and other on brake pedal, and it stalled and the clutch pedal fell to the floor.
He was helped to push it back into the car park and did not see it again until today (4 weeks later as he is a miner and works away)
Today we went up there (1 hour drive) to get it armed with a new clutch cable but when we got there I found that the original cable is OK.

I took the slack out of it at the rear adjustment (about an inch of cable) this brought the pedal back up but now you cannot depress the pedal, and the clutch still does not disengage.

Any thoughts?
Throw out bearing?
F**ked fork?

Going to get it tomorrow so I’d like some advice before we drop the engine.

 

If you took up a whole inch of adjustment and the cable is ok then trouble lurks inside the bellhousing. When you pull it apart I would put my money on a broken pressure plate. Throw out bearings usually make noise for awhile before finally failing. You could be right about the fork as well but with my luck it's usually the most expensive part that fails! please post your findings when you get it apart.

 

Frank: Take a hard look at the pedal assembly. I'm not sure by your description (taking up cable slack under the car) that the problem is at the clutch. When a fork fails it usually only cracks on one of the two fingers, and that won't allow the pedal to fall. Same for a pressure plate, the normal scenario is a much slower failure. If the TOB pulled out of the pressure plate I think that you'd have some pretty ugly noises. At the pedal you have the roll pin that holds the clutch pedal to the pedal assembly cross shaft, and then you have the welded end of the shaft (tunnel side of the pedals) that can also fail. Pull the floorboard before you pull the engine!

 

Thanks TT and Pete,

Pete,
When I took the slack out of the cable at the engine end I did could not get the pedal to depress far at all and the pedal remained in the same position in relation to the pedal shaft.

I will take you advice and more closely inspect the pedal pin before we dive into an engine pull.

We're going to get it thismorning and will let you guys know what we find.

 

OK,
Checked the roll pin and I could see all the way through it so it was OK.

Bit the bullet and dropped the engine and gearbox.

turns out the bearing had got hot and the lock ring had deformed and let go. Then the bearing was free to pull out of the spring fingers.

See attached pics:


It took us 1 hour to drop the motor

 

WOW

 

Yes, wow! Very unusual problem, especially with no report of noise. Good job!

 

Thanks Guys,

Where's the best place to get a bearing?
The owner is scared to ring the dealer down here. But then again, I'm always scared to ring them too.

 

As requested.

 

Thanks Frank. Sorry to hijack guys.