Mark:
I still say that you first need to check out the hydraulics. Since it's
likely that in your situation you'll want to pay someone to bleed the
hydraulics, don't have this done until you have a better idea of what the
problem is. Hopefully your problem will stop at the hydraulics, but it
could be problems inside the bellhousing with the taper pin, etc. or, at
the worst, as someone suggested, it COULD indicate that the thrust washers
in the engine are gone. This would mean that you need to have the motor
rebuilt NOW. Any more driving it with bad thrust washers would just cost
more money later at best. This is easily checked. Go to the front of the
motor and lever a large screwdriver against the crankshaft pulley, trying
to move it forward and backward. If it moves noticeably, then the worst
has happened. If you can't move it, then you can relax (a little!). The
thrust washers are supposed to limit the forward/backward "float" of the
crankshaft. When you operate the clutch, this puts a lot of pressure on
the rear of the crankshaft, trying to push it forward. If the thrust
washers are gone, then nothing is limiting that forward movement. And,
when the crank moves forward, it carries the clutch pressure plate further
away from the release bearing, which would require you move the release
bearing that much farther in order to release the clutch. There isn't
enough extra travel in the system to accomplish this, so you may experience
it as not being able to push the pedal in far enough to disengage the
clutch. This is one common weakness in the TR6 engine. Actually, back to
testing it, if someone sits in the car and pushes the clutch pedal in, you
ought to be able to detect a forward movement of the crankshaft pulley at
the front of the motor. Do you have any idea what kind of mileage is on
this motor? Anyway, pray that it's just the hydraulics!
Good luck!
Pete Chadwell
1973 TR6
>Thanks for your responses.
>I'll give a little more info, because the responses are so varied.
>The car will start if it is in gear with the clutch in. Once started,
>and I release the clutch, the car will drive. It is thereafter very
>hard to switch into and out of gears, and it only happens with a
>"clunk". This is a new phenomena, although the car always had a clutch
>which would only engage when the pedal is pushed to the floor, and
>disengaged very quickly once the pedal is slowly released.
>Does this help?
>Sirmoog
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