Technical Frustration with Clutch cable change.

[alfacool]

My day is not going well
After coming to a stand still on the water pump change i turned my attention to the clutch cable.
I had a new one from a previous Sei and thought i would double check the length with the one in this car.
Started to remove the mounting bolts from the bulk head only to get a turn and the bolt sheared .
Thought erm i might be able just to get away with holding by the 1 bolt..... And you guessed it also sheared :bang:.
Now i assume someone has had this happen in the past, and drilling out probably is the only solution.
But its very tight in there, so whats the best way to sort it?.
Cheers.
2001 MPI SPORTING.

 

[purf]

Ouch - unlucky! Can you see the captive bolts from the footwell under the carpet?


Hopefully you've already fixed it!

 

[alfacool]

Cant see much in there really due to the glove box etc.
Im hoping i can get an angle drill and tap out the bulk head from the engine bay and fit new bolts.
Does that sound feasible?

 

[purf]

The cinquecento had better access down there. The sei dash design does make it harder. The dash in my seicento has been cut and the bottom part removed by a previous owner. The bottom piece of dash still sits in place but it's no longer one piece. There's also a black cover to protect the mechanism from passengers feet.

I would hope that the studs are fitted from the inside. Welded to the footwell. I would try and drill them from the interior and perhaps JB weld some bolts in? Might have to remove the passenger seat to improve access.

 

[alfacool]

Well......
I tried to get my grinder under to grind off the studs
No joy - no room.
So i improvised, i was able to get my drill "just" and drilled and tapped a 3rd hole through the clutch cable mounting plate about 2 o clock placement.
Fitted a new 6mm bolt tightened into the bulkhead.
And then spent and hour and a half trying to get the hook far enough through the pivot to fit the split pin.
I gave up....
The hook needs to be held through the pivot, but every time i tried to put the split pin in the hook would spring back to cover the hole.
Need a good soak and a beer

 

[purf]

Your seicentos engine must not have had enough oil leaks over the years to preserve the studs ?

 

[alfacool]

This is really testing my resolve now.
Had to pull the car out of garage to give me room to attack the hook and spit pin.
My mother in laws car had a flat battery, so had to charge that up 1st then swap it over in the garage with the Sei.
Right.... After removing the ecu to give me more hand room i managed to locate the hook through the pivot, only took me ooooohh 1/2 an hour ( crazy )
It was then on to the split pin long handled long nose pliers got me there.
But could i hell as like find the hole ( snigger ).
After chewing on another 1/2 hour i was convinced the hole was blocked, nope looked ok when i took out the hook again.
HANG ON!!
The hook looked smaller and the hole was not in the same place as the snapped one i compared it to.
How could that even be?, so took out the cable AGAIN and looked at modding it to fit?.
Filed the hook corner to give me "more" distance through the pivot and opened the hole up by .2, made it closer to the original.
Refitted and fumbled with hook into pivot once more and nope i didnt get any quicker.
Well... I can get half a split pin in but the hole is still not far enough out. GRRR!!
Thats it im well done in for today. Plan is to take the cable out again and needle file the hole a forward a touch more.
NEED BEER NOW.

 

[purf]

Sounds like cheap quality part? At least you got the right length cable! Unlike me last time I had one break on a busy roundabout... had a spare oh the boot (expert eh) then found it was the wrong length - FAIL!

 

[alfacool]

Well im up and running.
Modded the hook end to take a split pin and fitted.
Had to make a new clutch arm pivot from nylon as that went when the cable snapped.
Note to self, this is the 3rd one you have fitted in 3 different Cento's, in the words of Danny Glover " im getting too old for this sh*t"
It feels smooth enough but heavy, or now feels heavy after driving the Alfa for a month.
Its got 38000 miles on it now and i would say its on its original clutch.
BTW it was a Pagid cable, i have used them before.

 

[purf]

Pagid should be ok...

I think I changed the clutch on my 2000 sei at about 65k a few years ago. Clutch wad grant and snapped the cable.
Looked like the original but hard to be sure. Lovely light pedal after new clutch.

Then a few months later the core plug behind the flywheel started peeing coolant out the bell housing so that was fun! Long neglected water leak from the temperature sensor housing... so it hasn't had any coolant for a while before I bought it. .

 

[rallycinq]

Its got 38000 miles on it now and i would say its on its original clutch.
BTW it was a Pagid cable, i have used them before.

38K with someone's foot resting on the clutch pedal is enough to compromise the release bearing.

D

 

[alfacool]

Agreed.