Hello

Just perchaced a Rreg 1.9D Felicia Estate. Has a couple of problems from being stood still for ages and fairly high milage (140k) Headlight adjusters leaking, Rear wash/wipe/heater not behaving and a small rocker cover leak - all of which I'm quite happy to sort out myself.

The main problem is the clutch. I discovered quite early on that the cable was out of adjustment when it started slipping and difficulty engaging gears. Tightend up the adjuster (as per Haynes) and all worked sweet. Only worry was a squeeking from the engine when the pedal was put down.

Last night (3am and very cold) the engine was working fine. Had a quick cuppa at a mates house. Went to leave - couldnt get into gear!

This morning, noticed that clutch pedal was lower than brake pedal. Re-adjusted cable but have run out of thread. So no more adjusting is possible but I'm still about 5mm off. Managed to fight the gearshift home, but I'm really worried.

Does this mean that I havn't done the adjusting right or do I need to replace clutch? If so, how envolved is it really? I'm fairly good at following the Haynes (first work I ever did on a car was a head gasket) but realy don't understand clutches. Haynes manual isn't the best for guessing how hard a job is, but it looks like a real pain.

Or do I wrestle it down to the local garage?

I've searched on here for any info but no results. Please Help!

Sounds like a knackered clutch.

You will probably find the spring is gone.

A clutch is doable, but you would probably want an engine crane to get access to the thing. If you are not sure what you are doing I wouldn't mess around.

If you do decide to make sure you change both the friction lining and the plate and I would also recommend replacing all the gaskets and oil seals as there is nothing worse than your new clutch getting contaminated with oil over saving a couple of pounds.

You should be able to get a new clutch fitted at a reasonable price.

(An octavia 1.9 TDI clutch is approx £300 fitted when i was checking parts prices before i bought mine)

Since they will crane the engine out to change the clutch you may find it worth getting the cambelt changed at the same time. This will probably cost very little more and unless you have proof it has just been changed, it isn't worth risking it as that would write the engine off.

Cheers cheezemonkhai, I thought it was knackered but was wondering if there was some easy thing I was missing. It's booked in for this week. Quoted