Hi folks,

My friend bought a panda after I told him how reliable and cheap to run they are, sadly within a month he was sat at the side of the road with the car not moving.

I came and picked him up and the car would just about move if given a load of throttle but topped out at about 5mph, the gear selector worked fine and the engine was revving freely which all points to the clutch.

The car is on 80,000 miles so was probably due one but I don't want to start removing the gearbox and find it was a clutch cylinder or something similarly easy to replace.

I am a competent DIY mechanic and have changed the gearbox and clutch on my mx5 before, something I assume was probably a lot more difficult than the pandas would be?

Is there anything else I can test before removing the box? And if it does come to removing the box how tricky a job is it and what will be needed, I will replace the gearbox fluid,clutch disk, plate and release bearing, is anything else worth doing whilst I am in there?

Cheers!

Did it just go?
Or did it start slipping a while ago?

Cylinder, slave and hydraulic problems usually cause engagement issues with the engine running, so it'll crunch or not go in gear running, but select ok when not.

Clutch wear causes a slip, but it usually starts off gradually, high load, hills, traffic light GP's first, until it wears right out and won't drive at all.

It takes a bit of skill to wear the fecker all the way out like that as you need to drive around the slip, the pedal often gets really heavy as you need to put more pressure on the pressure plate to operate it and the clutch "feel" goes, the pedal operates like a switch.

Oil could have contaminated the friction plate/flywheel.
Most likely the rear crankshaft seal or input seal of the gearbox, but you'd notice it leak off the bell housing as it finds it's way out.

Only one way to find out and that's pull the box.
I've not done a Panda, (worst I did was a 4x4 Rav 4) but most transverse setups need a bit of stripping to access the box and either pull out and up, out and down, tilting or lowing one end of the engine/gearbox. I'm sure you'll get it out with a bit of huffing and puffing.

My friend is a first time driver so he wouldn't necessarily notice the clutch slipping in the same way most of us would, however the car seemed to drive fine only a month ago when I test drove it with no clutch slip at all which is why I'm querying it being the clutch plate itself.

Possible, I've known leaner drivers to ruin a clutch in a matter of hours.

My mum tried leaning years ago, she managed to put a SAAB 96 with a freewheeling "over run" gearbox in reverse at 45 mph!

This was something SAAB said was impossible (before the event, after they weren't so sure), the gearbox had to go back to the factory for them to study.

foggymx5 said:

Hi folks,

My friend bought a panda after I told him how reliable and cheap to run they are, sadly within a month he was sat at the side of the road with the car not moving.

I came and picked him up and the car would just about move if given a load of throttle but topped out at about 5mph, the gear selector worked fine and the engine was revving freely which all points to the clutch.

The car is on 80,000 miles so was probably due one but I don't want to start removing the gearbox and find it was a clutch cylinder or something similarly easy to replace.

I am a competent DIY mechanic and have changed the gearbox and clutch on my mx5 before, something I assume was probably a lot more difficult than the pandas would be?

Is there anything else I can test before removing the box? And if it does come to removing the box how tricky a job is it and what will be needed, I will replace the gearbox fluid,clutch disk, plate and release bearing, is anything else worth doing whilst I am in there?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Check that the clutch slave cyclinder actuation, ensure it is moving freely on pedal press and releasing fully on pedal release. If all appears ok, then it is box out and check whats happening.
(I presume there are no unusual noises from diff or drive shaft area ?)