Clutch Pedal

[Bar Vitelli]

The clutch pedal on my favourite blue car has gone all slack.

I can still change gear but the pedal sits much lower and I have to push it right to the floor.

Is the problem likely to be the clutch or the clutch cable?

If it's the cable will it need a new one or just tightening and is this a big job?

Any thoughts most welcome - I love all my cars but my blue one is my favourite and I need it back on the road!

[sgtfuzz126]

stretched cable you can adjust it up but it will snap at sum point new one is only £15 on evil bay

[scotty]

Could be the nuts on the engine end of the cable working loose and making the operating length longer.
Mine did recently.

Try winding winding them up a bit and make sure you have 2 nuts to lock it. Dead easy.

If the cable is on its way out then they can lengthen as the cable unwinds.

I just ordered a new one off Ebay.
They're only £9 inc p+p.

[Rusty's Uncle]

Like scotty says most likely that your nuts are loose and they do "unadjust" with the running of the car. You should have a special nut on the cable up against the clutch actuation lever then a locking nut. Fiat used a standard M6 nut to do the locking and it is a real fiddle to get the spanners in there  to do this . I now use M6 stainless stud extender nuts as the locking nut which makes the adjustment & locking much easier 

[Bar Vitelli]

Thanks, chaps, that sounds promising (and inexpensive!), I'll order a new cable and pop across to my mechanic friend next week!   

[Rusty's Uncle]

By all means get a new cable as it is useful to have a spare These cables do not stretch as they are too robust for that but they can get damaged, corrode or fray and eventualy snap and driving without a clutch is an interesting experience 
Get out a 10mms & a 17mms spanner and spend 5 mins adjusting it 

[Bar Vitelli]

Rusty, I'll do just that, not sure where the nuts are but I'll get busy with my Haynes manual tonight, would be brilliant if I could fix something myself, the last time I tried my engine blew up and it cost me a mint 

[ChrisRLewis]

Yes try the adjustment first. This photo may help

[Captain Tracteur]

The only weak point of the clutch cable is the front end. There's a soldered hook on the very end of the cable, that connects it with the pedal linkage. If you don't see anything suspicious around the adjusting screw at the rear end, check that hook.

(In this case I guess, it's just the locking screw went loose and it allowed the adjuster screw to come undone. Some adjusting, some tightening, and loads of WD40 into the cable housing will solve this.)

[Bar Vitelli]

Clutch pedal fixed today, bought a new one but it just needed tightening so at least I've got a spare! 

Learnt a new trick as well, basically if you've got a rattle noise coming from your engine and you want to locate it then put a piece of wood against it and listen at the other end.  Amazing, works like a stethoscope, move it around the engine until you locate the problem then at least you can diagnose and order parts without taking the car apart! 

[scotty]

LOL! I made a similar thing using a piece of hose pipe with a screw driver shoved in the end.

I also replaced my clutch cable last week and found the outer sleeve had snapped causing a kink in the cable.
One thing I did find on my new cable was the eye part (that connects to the peddle) was a lot larger and wouldn't fit up the tube so I had to grind it down quite a bit to fit.

[drcdb15]

At last ! Mention of "a tube" ...  I have been trying to figure out how to replace the clutch cable on my CC Zero as the old one frayed and snapped as it had not been properly routed around the pulley wheel at the front (this does not apply in a standard 126) and nowhere could I find mention of this guide tube that is welded into the central tunnel. Having got the new cable, I too found that the pedal end nipple/hook was too fat to go along the tube, leaving me wondering how on earth the thing could possibly be fitted.

There seems to be no mention at all of this tube in the Haynes manual, and I confess to being a little concerned about reducing the diameter of the pedal-end nipple. Is this normal practice ?

It might be easier on the standard 126, but on the CC Zero it seems difficult in the extreme to see exactly where the end of the cable goes in the route between the engine/gearbox area and the rear-most end of the interior central tunnel.

At present I have the old cable c/w frayed end a few inches back inside the long guide tube (I had to pull it back in order to see if the new cable's nipple would fit through the tube). Sensible practice I guess would be to somehow get this forward and exposed again, then attach a thin wire to it before pulling the old cable c/w attached wire out of the rear end, and then using the thin wire to pull the new cable through from the back of the car towards the front.

I can see me having to remove half the interior to get to all this 

Is there any really neat trick anyone knows for getting the new cable located without dismantling half the vehicle for access ?

Thanks