Driving home and went to change gear, pedal dropped

"Oh God the clutch has gone!" I thought.. Pressed the pedal again and I managed to disengage the clutch and get into neutral. Pulled off the main road and tried again, feels strange but not as terminal as I've felt before. No wierd noises but the pedal isn't a smooth press. Can get gears reasonably ok.

Clutch master cylinder looks ok, can't see any leaks - can't even see the slave cylinder. Plus the car is soaked from rain so how am I going to find a fluid leak?

Help? Is the slave cylinder ontop of the gearbox under the battery? Are they as prone to failure as the ones on Bravo/Brava/Tipo/Tempra?

1.8 elx I had started leaking at 93000 from the slave cylinder although I was blaming the brakes for loss of fluid at the time until the brakes were checked. The clutch was working quite normal cos the fluid was kept topped up not a lot of help but I believe yours has done a lot more miles so could probably expect it to leak

Bill

my slave cylinder went at 42K on my old 1.6 weekend. £150 to fix it!

£150! Clutch slave cylinder isn't a hard job. I've done one in a busy public car park on a JTD Brava before.

I'm upto 130kish so I'll give the slave a change before I get into the expencive stuff!

Hi Hellcat, I'm pretty sure your slave is under the battery tray(mine was) but the battery and tray has to come out.
I've had a similar problem where the clutch will drop about 20mm over night (but no further) this was noticable from getting the car 75,000 miles ago, I've bled the system but it made no real difference, I suppose i've just got used to it, it's certainly got no worse. At one point I thought it was getting worse but it turned out that the carpet mat had slipped forward ad was fouling the stroke. opps !!!
(btw mines just reached 130k and still gives 45+ mpg and uses virtually no oil between oil changes so i'm thinking theres plenty life left in the old girl yet - fingers crossed)
DAlex

It's not looking good. The car is just about driveable if I'm patient with the gears.. but booting in 3rd from about 1800 gives noise but no go..



clutch slip

I'm guessing something has broken in the clutch mech. Pressing the pedal very lightly gives a rubbing feel through the pedal where it userd to be smooth. Think I'm going to start a 2.4JTD clutch fund

well glad to know so i can keep you away from mine

any idea what it could be? like the plates or summit

Today no clutch slip... Bust slave cylinder leaking brake fluid onto the clutch?

Hellcat, I did my own clutch on a 20v petrol, is a time consuming job. The slave cylinder as you say is an easy job. Is below battery tray and the part should be cheap. £150 some mechanic is charging £120 for 30 mins work.

It could 1, be the slave cylinder and obviously change this first. low pressure through a leak will not engage clutch arm to move the release bearing enough to move the pressure plate to release fully and hence make gear changes notchy, although this should not really be felt through the clutch pedal. Possibly the piston on the slave is corroded and is not sliding properly hence sticking, this you would feel through the clutch pedal. It may not be returning fully and hence not allowing the clutch arm to fully release the release bearing from the pressure plate and hence not fully releasing from the friction plate, hence your clutch slip. It would be like riding the pedal.

2, Otherwise I suspect that the diaphragm on the release plate is bent, the individual fingers. Or possibly the release bearing is not sliding properly along the input shaft. On 2 fiats I have had to investigate clutch faults, both showed signs of heavy wear on the pressure plate diaphragm. On my coupe these fingers bent and ripped apart the friction plate.

The gear change is a little notchy, and yes I'll be changing the slave cylinder first just in case - plus it can't hurt to replace it. There was a horrible crunch as I pressed the clutch this morning, but its driven as well as it ever has on the way to work.

Think Tipo will be coming out the Garage early and taking over while the Marea has its bits looked at

Let us know if you get it sorted.

It's still driving, and handles the power - but in neutral it has a horrible rotating clunking noise that goes away when you press the clutch pedal in.. Just need it to last a bit longer until I can get the Tipo on the road.

I don't know much about cars but... could it be the cable has just lost tension?

When talking about cylinders and such does this mean there is no clutch cable? Hydrolic clutch?

Probably a stupid comment I know, but when my golf clutch pedal fell it was because the cable had snapped rather than anything more serious.

Please ignore if I'm being totally clueless

lib319 said:

I don't know much about cars but... could it be the cable has just lost tension?

When talking about cylinders and such does this mean there is no clutch cable? Hydrolic clutch?

Click to expand...

Indeed The Fiats in question use a hydraulic system Basically when you push the peddle down it forces hydraulic fluid through a tube, as the fluid is forced into a piston at the other end it forces the piston open. The piston is attached to the arm on top of the gearbox and moves it much in the same way as a cable does.

Not a stupid question at all. In fact you are hitting the nail on the head as to what we were hoping it was.

In the same way that a cable can stretch loosing tension by becoming too long and having too much excess length to take up before it actuallly starts to move the arm on the gearbox, a hydraulic system can have similar effect. If there is not enough fluid in the tube then when you press the clutch pedal down it wont have enough fluid to push the piston out at the other end far enough to move the arm on the gearbox which inturn moves the clutch mechanism.

Hellcat, that sounds like a release bearing.

Thanks for this Bridges. You have also taught me how to spell hydraulic correctly!

Sorry a bit of a threadjack but is the throttle hydraulic too?

Throttle is electronic.. nothing apart from the bonnet release uses a cable

you have EXACTLY the same symtoms as mine gave out (bar a few squeeling noises). even the weird judder in neutral and gear, unless I disengage.

basically my release plate looked like this:-





and my release bearing, or rahter what was left of it was like this:-



and all that nasty metal and unbalanced ness, has chewed up the output/input shaft on the gearbox, and not done the flywheel and its mounting bolt holes any good either. the fly was saved after a skim round (took them days to find someone who would do it).

the gearbox is getting steadily worse, vibrating and wobbling horrificaly when accelerating (thats with 75hp and 75lb ft. a 2.4jtd will make horrifically fast work of a part mangled gearbox ). it is also affecting steering, the wheel wobbles at the same rate as the gearlever/car.


get it done asap, otherwise you may need a new g'box into the bargain

@ faster4_tec
Your pressure plate looks similar to my old 20v petrol one. Only difference was my diaphragm springs had not snapped although they were heavily worn, also my release bearing was fine, but it is of a different design. It was my friction plate that exploded.

@ lib319
lol
On a lot of the petrol Fiats other than the 20v vis engine the throttle's are cable operated. Its just these arty farty 2.4 diesels that have this advanced technology I assume other fiats also use it and I bet most are now using this system.

Means you can't do that manly thing of reving the engine from the engine bay by twisting the throttle linkage