Charlie, and others---Some of you who have had a ton of problems with
the taper pin thru the clutch cross shaft may find it difficult to
believe, but I've never had a broken pin in almost 27 years and over
200,000 miles, on my TR. Yesterday I had to replace my clutch, as the
lining was worn thin. I found this (wired) bolt to be loose on the
shaft. About an eighth of a turn on the square head on the end of a
large Crescent wrench brought it snug again, and rewired accordingly. I
mention this only because the play in the cross shaft-to-fork caused
about a 1/4" loss of motion before the throwout bearing made contact,
yet there was no problem in releasing the clutch. Said another way,
play here, or in the cross shaft bushings, or "flat" pins on the fork
have not caused this car to experience any of the stories posted here,
or on the TR Internet. It's my belief that the clutch hydraulics took up
the slack, leaving this lost motion undetected, and would've only showed
up with nearly complete failure of the fork area parts. (Like slave cyl.
pistons popping out of their bores!) Others can certainly disagree, and
I'd like to compare notes with any that do, to see where the differences
are. This format is for learning about our TR's, and doing away with
mis-
information, where possible.
On to some of your questions, which were already rightly answered by
others, but now with my own spin on these things.
Double-bush the cross shaft on each end, and get as much grease as
possible into this area. You can put a grease groove at the top of these
bushings before installing, as it's in a non-thrust area.
If you weld the fork to the cross shaft, you will have to saw it off,
eventually, to replace associated parts, but it Will stop the failure of
the broken pin! (There are some big names in TR circles who do this to
their own cars.)
Charlie, tho you may not want to, or have to do this job again, you will
find that the whole she-bang can be done in eight hours, when you've
done it enough times. Even less, when you experiment with clutch
linings, like some of the foolish!
Keep us posted, as usual...
Dick T
'73
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