26-06-2020, 10:03 PM
Good evening everyone,
I had just started writing about my experiences of this when the computer jumped to here. Yesterday, the Nippy clutch had lots of free travel and became virtually impossible to engage a gear when stationary. The only bit of "bite" was when the clutch pedal was hitting the back of the engine.
Today has been a learning curve as I've never had to deal with this before and so here is the "wisdom" of what I've found today.
First the car was jacked up and held on axle stands.
The screw head on the left of the car is not good with a small screwdriver as these tend to just jump out when you start to turn it. A "Z" screwdriver didn't really help at all. The screw head doesn't move very far at all - possibly 5 degrees antic clockwise in my case. Whilst doing this, the pedal hits the floor and the oiler inside the car moves.
The pinch bolt on the pedal was undone fully but this alone did not leave the shaft independent of it. There was a small "plug" of soft metal jammed into a small drilled hole which meant they were stuck fast together even after the bolt was removed totally. Eventually, this was persuaded out of its hole and, once the gunge, mud, oil, grit, whatever was disturbed enough, the pedal moved freely on the shaft.
The bolt was done up tight again and the pedal pushed fully down and held in position by a helpful assistant. The screw was then turned as far as it would go using a 1cm flat impact driver screw head in a 1/4 inch socket which had a 7 inch extension running over the chassis rail. The pinch bolt was then loosened off again using another 1/4 inch drive socket with a 90 degree joint in it to gain suitable access and the pedal returned to its furthest back position whilst holding the screw with the socket.
The pinch bolt was then done up tight and the various tools removed.
The clutch is now back fully up and running and disengages perfectly when stationary with the engine running and is smooth (for an Austin 7) when engaging it into drive mode.
This all sounds simple and, in the end, it was. It just took a couple of hours of trial and error trying to find suitable tools and working out what was going on before it all came together fairly quickly. I have previously understood that this can be quite a troublesome process but this worked fine for my car.
I don't know if any of that helps or makes sense but it worked for me and has the Nippy fully up and running again.
Best wishes,
Nick
I had just started writing about my experiences of this when the computer jumped to here. Yesterday, the Nippy clutch had lots of free travel and became virtually impossible to engage a gear when stationary. The only bit of "bite" was when the clutch pedal was hitting the back of the engine.
Today has been a learning curve as I've never had to deal with this before and so here is the "wisdom" of what I've found today.
First the car was jacked up and held on axle stands.
The screw head on the left of the car is not good with a small screwdriver as these tend to just jump out when you start to turn it. A "Z" screwdriver didn't really help at all. The screw head doesn't move very far at all - possibly 5 degrees antic clockwise in my case. Whilst doing this, the pedal hits the floor and the oiler inside the car moves.
The pinch bolt on the pedal was undone fully but this alone did not leave the shaft independent of it. There was a small "plug" of soft metal jammed into a small drilled hole which meant they were stuck fast together even after the bolt was removed totally. Eventually, this was persuaded out of its hole and, once the gunge, mud, oil, grit, whatever was disturbed enough, the pedal moved freely on the shaft.
The bolt was done up tight again and the pedal pushed fully down and held in position by a helpful assistant. The screw was then turned as far as it would go using a 1cm flat impact driver screw head in a 1/4 inch socket which had a 7 inch extension running over the chassis rail. The pinch bolt was then loosened off again using another 1/4 inch drive socket with a 90 degree joint in it to gain suitable access and the pedal returned to its furthest back position whilst holding the screw with the socket.
The pinch bolt was then done up tight and the various tools removed.
The clutch is now back fully up and running and disengages perfectly when stationary with the engine running and is smooth (for an Austin 7) when engaging it into drive mode.
This all sounds simple and, in the end, it was. It just took a couple of hours of trial and error trying to find suitable tools and working out what was going on before it all came together fairly quickly. I have previously understood that this can be quite a troublesome process but this worked fine for my car.
I don't know if any of that helps or makes sense but it worked for me and has the Nippy fully up and running again.
Best wishes,
Nick