Apologies for the bad pun on a great song.

Clutch has given in. Driving along, no worries. Went from 4th to 5th, no problem. 5 miles later, tried to go back to 4th/3rd while slowing for a roundabout on a slip road. Clutch pedal moves and springs back up, but it's just not disengaging the clutch.

Had to drive the remaining 5 miles to work, through a town, with no working clutch, stop to drop off the bairn, restart, get to work, then drive home again at 7am. Fortunately traffic was light, so it wasn't too difficult.

Guess the starter motor's gonna be the next one to die then!

Have a feeling it's a hydraulic problem. Had a slight spill on the passenger side near the gearbox a week ago, never could trace it. Also, I pulled up the clutch pedal just before the leak, and it sat higher for a day or so - might expect that with a self adjusting cable, but not on a hydraulic clutch...

Ah well, at least I've had practice driving a cinq clutchless before so it wasn't an AA job. Investigations start in 10 minutes...


---edit---

Have had a look. There's about 1" of travel maybe on the clutch arm, looks like that's about what it's supposed to do judging by the bellows on the slave cylinder. Slave cylinder has been weeping and the bellows are split, but it seems to be working as intended. I guess the clutch has failed internally.

Looks like it's fix it again tomorrow time. Arse.
Thought I'd finished fixing this one.

Bad luck Pete, fingers crossed its not too bad.

Hope you ge tit sorted soon pete

it could be the thrust bearing on the clutch my marea done the same thing and when i rang about a clutch the fellow that they give trouble... and he was right cause that wat it was the pressure plate and plate where like new and the thrust had pack in.

hope u get it sorted

Be interested to hear what it was - Had a sudden clutch failure on my wife's Marea Weekend 2.0 a few months ago - turned out that driven plate spring had broken, was fouling up the pressure plate, would only parly disengage, occasionally fully.

Odd thing is that car had only done 80,000 km, apparently at 40,000km had done the same thing to the previous owner... always had excessive gearbox noise, found out after we bought it that box had been apart before, when we bought it got dealer to replace input shaft bearing, still noisy.. was some suggestion that gearbox input shaft may not have been aligned with flywheel/engine... Her last car (a Croma) had original clutch when we sold it at 170,000km (bought at 50,000km), can't blame it on abuse.

Had secondhand box fitted and new clutch, hopefully that will solve it. I've always owned Italian cars, extoled their virtues, this event didn't impress me. Nor did shagged front susp balljoints at 80,000km. Like it otherwise..

Mark.

Thanks everyone. Am in two minds whether to pull it all apart and see what's needed, or just go buy a full 3 piece clutch kit and fit it while the box is off. Wouldn't kill me if the car is off the road for a few days.

MarkB - was it anything like this in the pic?
Spring fell out when removing the clutch - little spring's polished around all of it's edges and looks to have been catching or rattling about for a while - didn't hear a sound though. Flywheel bolt heads are polished as well.

Have treated it to new box oil, 3 piece clutch, new slave cylinder and it's running sweet. Gonna give it a damn good hoover and a wash now, too.

Tis good being able to do big and comfy again

Good job Pete. Hopefully that will keep it going for a while.

Cheers Steve, I hope so. That was a bugger of a job to do DIY.
It's such a nice car to drive too, I've missed it more than I thought I would.

I was going to post that you should change the slave cylinder anyway, but then I read you'd already done it. Split bellows and weeping hydraulic fluid is a sign of impending failure. Common fault on the coops....

H

Well done for finishing it off, never thought I would hear you say you didn't fancy doing some mechanical work yourself so well done for not giving in

Pete - I didn't see mine, at the time I was about to have an operation so had to pay a dealer to do it (ouch!), normally I do all of my own work. It does sound like the same problem as they described it. I've also had the same thing happen on my 1973 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000, looked like yours.They also replaced the slave cylinder, it was leaking.

Good to hear that it is fixed! Congrats on taking it on, I gather that they aren't the easiest to do...

Mark.

Cheers all.
It' a question of space for getting the gearbox in and out mainly, there's not that much room unless you take the entire front crossmember off - which I didn't fancy!