Coolcar

I have a problem with my '70. Saturday morning, I was getting ready to take it to a show, but when I tried to crank it, the car lurched like the clutch pedal wasn't fully depressed. I tried again, making sure the pedal was all the way in, with the same results. After cranking it in neutral, I can't get it to go into any gear, it's like the clutch isn't engaging at all. What confuses me is that it worked without a hitch tha last time I drove it (about three weeks ago). What does this sound like, and why do you think it would work fine when the car was driven last, but suddenly now work. It seems strange that something would break or become disconnected while the car's sitting there.

Has anyone ever had this happen? Any ideas?

gravismaximus

sounds like the linkage came apart, maybe the linkage was hot and working its way apart for awhile now, and when i cooled it worked its way apart. just a idea. go look at it, its the only way youll know.

71coupe

Check the "Z" bar. They have been know to break at the welds.

Turbo-Jet

If the linkage was broken you would definitely notice very low pedal effort. The two coil springs are only designed to remove the slop in the linkage and to return the pedal to its home position.

Was the clutch slipping? It may be almost undetectable if you didn't drive hard. If so, and if the clutch is worn, then it is possible for the clutch disk to bond to the flywheel or pressure plate. I had a 4-puck Kevlar disk clutch in my Z28, and when the clutch toasted itself, it got so hot the aluminum rivets holding the pucks in place actually welded to the flywheel. The starter barely had enough grunt to turn the transmission when I tried to start it in neutral the next day.

Other possibility is some of the spring fingers are bent or have broken away, therefore not allowing the release bearing to completely disengage. Or the bearing is not sliding.

Coolcar

Thanks for the tips. I was talking to someone at work this morning and he saia it sounded like the linkage had possibly worked loose. I'll check that out. I haven't noticed any slippage, but I don't drive the car very hard, and the pedal effort seems to be normal, but I'll take a look and see what I can find. By the way, what's a "z" bar?

Fevre

Look under the hood for the rod coming out of the firewall, see if the nuts are loose on the junction with the z-bar. Once loose the lower one tends to work its way down the rod.