1964-1974 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Your guess is probably the most likely one, but other possibilities include:
-- Seized clutch master cylinder
-- Seized clutch slave cylinder
-- Mouse nest or other blockage interfering with clutch lever (no joke! mice love old Saabs!)
-- Pedal rusted onto pedal shaft.
Ways to start looking:
-- Take off the "vent" cover on the bell housing and look inside. You can see part of the clutch. Anything in there that looks as if it shouldn't be there?
-- Flip back the rubber 'condom' that covers the hole where the slave cylinder goes into the bell housing. Inside you'll see a lever, which is the thing on which the slave cylinder's piston pushes when you step on the pedal.
Push the lever as far away as you can from the piston (it's hard to push.) Now have somebody step on the pedal (keep your fingers out of the way of the piston.) See if the piston moves at all; if it doesn't, your problem is somewhere "uphill" of the piston (e.g. slave cylinder or pedal) or if it does but the lever won't budge, the problem is "downhill" (lever or clutch mechanism.)
-- If it's "uphill": Inside the car, you can remove the toeboard and uncouple the pedal from the master cylinder pushrod by removing a clip and pulling out a pin. Now you should be able to see if the clutch pedal can move freely or not. There are oil holes on the pedal castings where the rod goes through; owners were supposed to lubricate the pedals regularly to keep them from rusting onto the shaft, but a lot of people forgot! On the other hand, if the pedal moves freely on the shaft, the problem is more likely in the master cylinder and it will have to come out.
-- If it's "downhill": It'll be harder to localize the problem because the parts are really hard to see. One thing you can try if you're patient you can try "bumping" the car or some other voodoo method to try to bust the clutch disk loose from the flywheel. If it doesn't work after a few tries, you'll have to give up and pull out the powertrain so you can separate the engine from the transaxle and see what's wrong. PIA, I know, but if you are doing a full restoration you'll be removing the powertrain eventually anyway, so...
posted by 204.76.1...
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