Amazon: Rock hard clutch pedal

[gjr0]

I'm driving home tonight, coming up to the stop sign at Bridge Ave, go to push in the clutch and the pedal is rock hard, it does not move. Since there were other cars I had to stop but it started right up in 1st gear. Made the light onto Hwy 12 and came home shifting without the clutch.

Other than no clutch and a solid pedal the only other thing was a kind of POP in the instant between when I started to press the pedal and when it quit moving. Sound familiar to anyone ?

It is too dark to look at it tonight. Any ideas what I should look for in the morning ?
Thanks
Greg

[packers1712]

Hi Greg,

What year is your car, as in is it hydraulically or cable operated clutch?

Doug.

[gjr0]

'67 P220 hydraulic clutch

[packers1712]

Greg,

There is only really a couple of causes that will give you a solid pedal, a foreign object obstructing the clutch fork/slave cylinder actuation rod or a similar foreign object preventing the clutch pedal from being depressed, most other failures wouldn't give the solid pedal symptom.
Air in the system would result in lack of ability to disengage, worn clutch could be the same as well as slipping even if the release bearing failed I would imagine there would still be some pedal movement albeit with some horrible noises.

In the words of Ron Kwas, good hunting!

Sorry Ron hopefully I haven't infringed any copyright rules!

Doug.

[Derek UK]

Check where the pushrod from the pedal goes into the MC. If the pop appeared to be from inside the car the clip that holds the centring cup could have popped out. Also check the slave end as well. Have you worked on the system recently?

[gjr0]

The problem was obvious once I crawled under the car. The push rod between the slave cylinder and the clutch arm had snapped. That let the piston in the slave cylinder come out to the snap ring and that was it. It makes perfect sense once you know he cause.

The odd thing is that the original push rod was cracked when I had the slave cylinder resleeved. At the time I turned a few more threads on a fine thread 5/16" X 5" bolt and ground the hex to a hemispherical (mostly) shape. It only lasted a few months.

This one snapped right behind the jam nut for the round faced nut that bears on the clutch arm. I think the original one snapped there too because I loctited a nut on the end of the push rod to keep the spherical nut from getting lost if it happened again.

[Derek UK]

Pushrod and new gaiter isn't expensive. As a comment I keep saying that I'll replace the thin locking nut for a normal width one so you can easily get the second spanner on it when tightening. Can see no reason why it's so thin.