I got home from work tonight and as I pulled up the clutch felt odd. Slight resistance about half way down and a roughness. It comes and goes. Had a new cable about 3 years ago and had no symptoms before this.

Looked under the bonnet and at the point where the pivot for the clutch lever enters the casing there was a small piece of gravel lodged. I hooked it out and don't get the same roughness so hope that was it.

What I need to know is - should this shaft be exposed like this or should there be a rubber boot protecting it?

The part I'm looking at is at the forward end of the clutch lever, furthest from the cable attachment. There is a small spring attached above it. The shaft enters the casing vertically and the socket is slightly cupped so looks prone to catch all sorts of rubbish. I've never looked closely at it before so not sure whether something's missing or not.

Car's a 1.9 diesel.

Thanks

Na sounds ok, sometimes there is a small white collar covering the shaft a bit but most of the older ones don't have it, the shaft just goes down thru a plastic sleeve into the bell housing.

Oh, ok. That sounds like it's fine then. Hopefully fishing the gravel out is all that was needed. I can't see anything else there or at the pedal that would have caused it.

Thanks for the reply.

But my guess it's the clutch cable. Aftermarket ones are all POS, inner sleeve separates from outer one. I changed two in 3 years, original cable lasted 12 years;

Edited 18 April, 201313 yr by adurer

Seems likely. I changed the old one because it felt very rough to use and I thought it wouldn't last. This was the same feeling but is ok again now so could have been that trapped gravel.

Thanks for the help and the photos. Mine is most like the lower photo with the small spring attached to the lever. My cable seems to run the other way though, probably for right hand drive. The outer terminates at the bracket at the top of the second photo and the inner is secured by a nut at the lever end.

As felicia 16v says, the white plastic sleeve that you can see between the lever and bell-housing in the second picture is definitely missing but whether that's recent or it has always been missing I couldn't say.

Another thing missing is the rubber plug in the hole above the flywheel.

Yeah, both photos are from LHD cars, mine is the lower one.

About the rubber plug missing on that hole above flywheel, it's not critical, unless you plan doing some off-road driving or trying to see if Felicia is amphibious.

Nearly 2 weeks and it's done it again. Same as before - uneventful journey home, stop outside to open the garage door, get back in to car and dip the clutch before starting and there was a resistance in the pedal. No roughness this time just extra resistance then I shoved a bit harder on the pedal and it let go and everything's fine again.

Imagine pushing a rubber ball through a hole that's a few mm smaller. It's like that at the top of the clutch travel - a strong resistance with a bit of give. Then it's like the ball has popped through the hole and the clutch goes down. Then that's it cleared and the pedal will go up and down as normal. A daft description but the best I can think of.

I've got 130,000 miles on the clock and I think it's the original clutch. Do you still think cable or could it be something in the clutch about to give up? There's nothing obviously wrong at either end of the cable, it doesn't look kinked anywhere and I've not disturbed it or anything round it recently.

I've got 130,000 miles on the clock and I think it's the original clutch. Do you still think cable or could it be something in the clutch about to give up? There's nothing obviously wrong at either end of the cable, it doesn't look kinked anywhere and I've not disturbed it or anything round it recently.

I doubt it is the original clutch. If it is... you definitely need to apply to Guinness Records.

Anyway, you have two options: the cheap one, and the proper one.

The cheap one means taking the clutch cable out and inspect it for wear, bad core wires, unglued inner sleeve. Give it some firm bends, watch for sleeve rubbing, crackling noise. That happens more often on the pedal end of the cable. If Ok, grease it and put it back. Grease also the clutch lever axle with some WD40 or wheel grease.

The proper option is to change the whole clutch kit because the pressure plate 'fingers' might have issues that could explain that uneven springy resistance.

Thanks for the pointers. Long weekend coming. I'll try the cheap option first.

No receipts for a clutch in the history. I bought it at about 60,000 miles and it's not had one while I've had it. Probably down to the rivets by now

Not renowned for my speediness in getting round to jobs I have finally started looking for a clutch cable.

Are they all the same? I either come up with cheap flimsy looking things or genuine Skoda but for a 1.3mpi. Will that fit my diesel? (Sort of out in the sticks here and no decent car parts places nearby so pretty much relying on the net.)

Thanks

Mitch

Something has finally given up the ghost but not sure what. Maybe the release bearing.

 

I was backing into the garage, dipped the clutch and it was not fully disengaging and with the engine running it wouldn't come out of gear. Turned it off, took it out of gear, re-started and it wouldn't engage any gear.

 

I was getting hardly any movement of the release arm so I've tightened the nut on the cable further to get enough movement to get gears again but after moving it there's a strong smell of burning (clutch?) even though the clutch doesn't appear to be slipping.

 

Thought I'd give it a run to see but half out of the garage the clutch started to drag again so I thought better of it.

 

The cable is intact and still attached both ends and moves freely but if I move the release arm there are creaking grinding noises from inside the clutch housing with the engine turned off.

 

Release bearing collapsing?

do the clutch kit and get it over with.

the more you postpone the worse will get.

you can't avoid it no matter how long you ask us.

Well it took 3 months but I finally followed your advice. Chickened out of doing it myself so it's been in the garage for 3 months while I saved the funds. Just hoping nothing else has deteriorated too much while it has been standing. Looking forward to being a Felicia driver again.

Try to take some photos of old clutch kit. That might prove useful for other members.

Was going to but the garage already binned it. Sorry.

Hopefully it's helpful to know that once the symptoms start you'll only get a few hundred miles tops and given that there's no warning when it's going to finally give up the ghost, it's probably best not to stray too far from home. I was very lucky and it was halfway out of the garage when it completely failed.

Ok, they binned it, although in here mechanics keep faulty parts in case clients want to see them for whatever reason and only then they bin them.

 

So what part failed? Disc? Bearing? Plate? All?

I think it was the bearing that failed suddenly. I cooked what remained of the clutch moving the car after that - I adjusted the cable to get enough movement to release the clutch but this resulted in a very bad slip and ultimately a lot of smoke. The clutch was very close to needing replacement anyway - near the end of its travel even before this. They've replaced the lot anyway.

I've been using this garage for over ten years and have never had cause to doubt their work so I don't think they'd have thought that I'd ask to see the parts. They used to but they've moved to premises out of town now so I suppose we've become used to dealing over the phone more. They work on a lot of classic cars and grass track racers as well and I know I can waste a lot of their time chatting about those given the chance so I find myself trying to keep it short.

Edited 8 November, 201312 yr by Red Studio