Technical Adjusting the clutch cable

[rautori]

I'm having a problem with my 1999 seicento 1100 shifting into 1st and 2nd gear, and there's a grinding noise when I shift into reverse. The problems get worse after driving for about 5 minutes and the car warms up. I've seen a few topics on the forum about this, and the general recommendation seems to be to first adjust the clutch cable.

I looked at the manual, it says the stroke of the pedal should be 110 mm, I've measured mine the best I could and I think I'm at 90mm or so. It's way out.

I've tried to loosen the nut at the end of the threads at the clutch cable, but I'm not really sure if I'm doing it properly. I'm looking at a 10mm nut and a plastic nut which seems to have an odd shape. I should want to loosen the nut to increase the stroke of the pedal. The lever mechanism seems to be really tight and I'm not really able to move that back by hand. Should I instead loosen the plastic nut? Any tips on how not to strip it out?

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2wqzmgx&s=8

I've tried loosening and tightening the metal nut, I know I'm doing something wrong because during my test run after adjusting I wasn't really able to get into 2nd gear with the engine turning, I have to turn the engine off now to go into 1st or 2nd, and I prefer doing the same for reverse.

Any help would be really appreciated!

 

[rautori]

I actually just fixed the problem!

The error in my thinking was that I thought I needed to loosen the nut, but I had to tighten it. I got a bit scared because I made the problem worse, I had loosened the nuts and the clutch would catch with the car in neutral, this told me I had to tighten it.

So I tightened the plastic nut after I had loosened the metal one, I counted all half rotations, I tightened it 8 times so if it didn't feel right I could loosen 4 and so on. I actually ended up tightening about 14 times from where I started. My initial test run the 2nd gear would still be a bit annoying, so I decided to tighten it a bit more. Right now it's shifting really smooth into 1st and reverse. The 2nd gear I really don't have to fight anymore but I did feel some minor resistance after my 2nd test drive, I can live with that.

The clutch petdal is now extending a bit beyond the brake pedal and I need to relearn to shift now it's biting differently.

I'm really happy to have this forum! Thanks!