Hi everyone, first post in a long time. After a Sylva and then a Raw Striker, I had a couple of years away from kit cars before buying a 2.3 Duratec Westfield during the second lockdown. I spent the winter tidying it up and getting it ready for an MOT. It had been a hill climb car for a number of years so no lights and hadn’t had an MOT in 12 years. I’m glad to say that it passed at second attempt with just a few things to sort after the first failure.

Now my question, it has a type 9 gearbox and on a spirited drive, the cable at the bellhousing end jumped out leaving me with no clutch. I had to back off the adjuster nuts to get it back in place and then googled how to adjust it. Everything I can see points to setting it up with a couple of mm of freeplay so the clutch fully releases. When I do that though it won’t go into any gear with the clutch fully depressed. It looks like the bracket is different from the standard Ford one and I need to tighten the adjuster nut until it’s tight with no freeplay before it will go in gear. I’m concerned doing this may knacker the clutch or throwout bearing but assume this is how the car must have been when I got it. Any advice? I’d considered cutting 2-3mm off the end of the bracket so I could get enough travel to engage the clutch but still have some freeplay so it releases fully. I’ll work out how to upload a picture again so you can see the bracket.

Description

I wonder if the pivot inside the bellhpusing is too short, messing up the geometry.

Sounds like you need to look at the pedal end to change the attachment point and pull more cable if you want the bearing to disengage the clutch AND have free play. It will change the pedal ratio though so the clutch will need more force to disengage.

That said, if you consider the amount of time in a production car that a release bearing will spend sat at traffic lights being held under full release load at idle and add on the time depressed changing gears at high revs, you might find the different duty cycle gives you acceptable life. if you're loading the fingers at all times though, you're reducing the capacity of the clutch.

could be the wrong Clutch Release Bearing has been fitted?

Type 9 needs a CCT 133 which is from a Ford Capri I believe.

More info here

Thanks for the replies. I’ll have a look at the pedal end to see if I can find another 1/4 inch or so of cable which will give the freeplay required. As per my earlier message, my other thought was simply to shorten the tube section of the bracket pictured which is where the adjuster nut is tightened up against. This would allow the freeplay required but still have the adjuster nut in the same place relative to the cable

Description

Roughly drawn, cut out enough of the end of this bit of tube section on the bracket marked red, until I have a couple of mm of freeplay and the clutch fully disengages when at the floor. The bracket is non original and seems to be longer than the standard capri/Sierra part

[Edited on 5/6/22 by gav2612]

You said in your first post that when you adjusted the cable so that it gave the lever free play, you couldn't engage any gears - which means you haven't pulled enough cable.

Cutting the tube down won't change how much cable is pulled, it'll just change the position of the adjuster nuts.