Gear Grind After Clutch Adjustment

Thodge

Thodge

Senior Member
I adjusted the free play in my clutch pedal and now I’m having trouble with gear crunching when shifting into gear while the car is stationary or moving. Beforehand, it was shifting perfect and the clutch was engaging smooth when the pedal was released but it had a ton of free play at the top of the stroke. So I shortened the trunnion to lessen the free play. As you would expect, the clutch engaged higher from the floor but the gears will crunch into any gear. Doesn’t matter whether you’re sitting still, upshifting with double clutch, or downshifting with double clutch and throttle tap. It’s totally counterintuitive when it should be fully disengaging the clutch further up in the stroke. Adjusted the trunnion back to about where it was and it’s a little better but it’s still happening occasionally. Never did it before whether the car was hot or cold. Makes no sense. It’s almost like the input shaft isn’t slowing down fast enough when the clutch is engaged and makes it impossible to get a smooth shift. As far as I know, the trans has 600w oil in it but I can’t guarantee it. Would low oil cause this?
 
Yes, low trans oil will cause gear clash because there is no fluid drag on the gears. Another possibility is a rough pilot bearing. Since the grinding started immediately after the free play adjustment it would seem unlikely to be low trans oil or a dragging pilot bearing but somehow related to the adjustment. Might pull the clutch housing cover and observe the disk when the clutch is disengaged. Please share the fix.
 
Try only pushing the pedal down 1/2 or 3/4 the way and see if it helps.
Model As tend to have a sweet spot when shifting. Your shift point (rpms) can make a difference also.
 
Check to see if the clutch pedal is hitting the floor board or possibly the battery cable etc... and might not be allowing it full travel.
 
It just all seems too coincidental that it happened right after the adjustment and now it can’t be reversed. The theory of the shaft arm having a crack that opened up seems very plausible. It would make sense that adjusting the clutch to disengage closer to the top of the stroke would put more pressure on it when the pedal is fully depressed and could open it up further. That would likely explain why it got a little better when I backed it back off but didn’t completely solve the problem. I’ll need to take a close look at that. I know the pedal arm does sit tight against the underside of the floor board when it’s all the way at the top of the stroke but since there is free play at the top and the clutch engages a fair distance from bottomed out, I doubt that is causing it. I did think to try pushing in the clutch part way and it made no difference. I tried dropping the idle to see if that was the issue and it didn’t really make much difference other than making the car stall at stops again so that’s out. I’ll check the shaft arm and top off the trans fluid and report back. Unfortunately now the car’s out of commission for a radiator repair so I can’t check it until that’s taken care of.
 
Or put the arm back to where it was!
 

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In my previous post I mentioned that I did back the adjustment back off and it didn’t totally reverse the problem. Even if it did, I wouldn’t consider half of the pedal stroke being free play to be normal or acceptable. Needed adjustment bad.
 
1&1/2"-2" is good for free play. Look for a crack while depressing and releasing the clutch peddle. You don't want the clutch to not work comming to a stop at an intersection, or pulling into your garage!
 
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