Amazon: Jerking in gear, clutch slippage?

[gothamus]

I'm driving about the city in my Amazon today. She's been driving great, no concerns. Brooklyn driving keeps us in 2nd and 3rd gear a lot. I was around town for about 15 miles of driving. Lot's of stop signs and stop lights.

Suddenly, going from a stop sign, I'm speeding up through first gear when I feel the car jump once, then again, as if my foot slipped onto the clutch. I went into 2nd and on my way through the range and it jumps again, jerking and jerking like my foot is slipping on to the pedal and pumping. First time this occurs I stopped and started off again, no repeat. Second occurrence I powered out into 3rd. Moved on fine.

I've not had it repeat while on the cross-town highway today, or while typical driving from stop to 45 mph, 1 to 4th gear.

• No engine issues, idle steady. During leaps, I push in the clutch and engine idles even. Tach never pinged or indicated a mis-fire.
• Throttle controls solid, nothing loose.
• The engine was warm. 1/2 hour of driving before this occurred.
• Hydraulic fluid full on clutch controls and everything is connected.
• I tried adjusting the nuts on slave cylinder a bit to see if it had an impact. Not sure if it did. Probably not enough to notice. Later I seemed to start jerking in the middle of 1st but then it didn't turn into such a dramatic jerk.

I can't repeat the problem on demand. It happened 5 or 6 times today. Light acceleration, not moving fast through gears. This occurred in 1st and 2nd gear but I don't think that 3rd was given the same condition of accelerating through to the next gear.

I'm thinking clutch issue. Would this indicate anything about the gearbox? It does not pop out of gear or seem about to. No problems getting into reverse or any gear engagement. Either I've got a problem with adjustment, or maybe the clutch plate is getting worn.

[Derek UK]

Off the wall maybe but richen your mixture a couple of flats on each carb. Some time a go I weakened my mixture by about 1 1/2 flats to see what it would do for my fuel consumption just before a long trip. I had similar results and I had to stop after getting off the motorway and drop them down again. Instant fix. Not a bad idea to richen by a flat or so in winter anyway for easier starting and smoother running. NY can be rather cold!!!

[gothamus]

That's a good idea. The season has been rain, rain and snow, rain. Cool then freezing. Today the temps were dropping all day. I'll adjust in the morning and see the result. I bet that is it. I'm thinking now how the idle is unreliable after I left of the choke. And when this issue happened I sensed there wasn't enough fuel at that moment, but I couldn't see how that fit.

I'll let you know. I've another day of city driving. Cheers!

[gothamus]

Hey- just want to follow up and say that too lean a mixture was the problem. I don’t believe I’ve Experienced this symptom of too-lean before and I’ve learned something.

To test if it was the case, I first leaned it out one flat. And I had this stumbling drive just going down the block. I turned it out to enrichen the mix and she’s driving great now.

Thanks Again!

RB