Clutch Conundrum

Usually if your clutch is dragging then it won't be keen to go in any gear when standing still with the engine running and you'll get a nasty crunch when trying for reverse.

Where is the biting point? If it's right on the floor then it could still be part of the problem, if not then I think it's something else.

Did you have to drain the oil and put fresh in as part of the job? Different oils have a big effect on synchro operation.

Nick

Indeedy, the only oils I have seen aid a smooth shift in Pug boxes is a BV spec oil (GSF sell this under the total brand as do the dealers themselves at quite a reasonable rate), or at least it seemed to be the consensus from my GTi-6 days. From what I was told though, it is more to do with the bearings that are used in the gearboxes though, not the synchros themselves.

In the XU engined 306s (the 1.8, 2.0 and diesels) the adjuster was halfway in the cable. Before the adjusters give up (I have never had this happen to me but I have had the adjusters go funny) the biting point starts to dance around all over the place but you can generally tell when this is occurring.

Another thing is, in your pic I am fairly sure that your cable is not inserted fully home on the outer cable engine (It's been a while since I've changed a cable mind you on a 306). I know on one of my 306s and especially on the 106 GTi(they both use the same cable) that end was a pig to get in without the aid of grease/silicone lubricant. However I would expect that to give you a higher biting point as a result...

Final thing is, what issues were occuring before the clutch died?

A silly Q that occured to me. The cable looks quite new. Is the white pretensioning (allows the cable to be inserted onto the car more easily) device still fitted to the adjust or is it removed? It is a silly thing I know, but I think we've all fallen victim to it once or twice .

It will go into any gear fine when standing still and there's no crunch going into reverse.



The biting point is quite high. I'm not entirely sure where it should be to be honest so I don't know if it's too high. It feels fine to me...



Yep, 75W/90 as per the Haynes manual, from Halfords.



Thanks for the heads-up on where to find the adjuster. I don't know how new the cable is; I've also not noticed if the white pretensioner is still attached, I've not had a look yet but will do.

The clutch in fact didn't really die, or not as much as I thought it had. I was queueing in a multi-storey on a long, steep ramp (barrier to the car park at the top, so all the cars waiting to enter had to queue up the ramp). The car has covered about 136,000 miles, I don't know when the clutch was last changed, and for most of the 14 months/4000 miles that we've owned it, there has been a lot of clutch judder when pulling away in 1st, unless you were very careful. I've only been driving for those 14 months, so probably not careful enough ;D. In the last 1-2 weeks, the clutch had also started to snatch occasionally, suddenly taking up drive at the end of its travel.
For those reasons, I've tried to be careful with it, not holding the car on the clutch for too long, pulling away as gently as I could (mostly), etc.
After a number of hill starts on the ramp, as I went to move forward again, the clutch emitted a large cloud of white smoke (and I mean large, ask EmDee who was queuing behind me) and the car started to roll back as I released the handbrake. I braked, hand brake on again, tried again with more revs and made it to the top of the ramp. We were stuck in the queue of traffic going up the car park by then, so had to keep going up till I found a space. Getting up the short ramps between floors was taking about 4-4500rpm in first, accompanied by more white smoke and the delightful scent of Parfum d'Embrayage. So I checked over the phone if GSF had a replacement and jrevillug went and picked it up for me.

After leaving the car for about an hour, it then drove find on the way back to Area 52, presumably because it had had a chance to cool down. However it made sense to replace it anyway, not knowing its history, if it would hold up, taking into account the judder, and having the facilities and experience to hand.
On removal, MantaPhil (who is a pro and a curse word legend ) said that there probably was still some life left in the clutch.

How should the cable outer be inserted? I'm not sure whereabouts it should sit or what it looks like properly seated. Just to reiterate, it's an early 1.6 so according to Haynes has the smaller, MA5 gearbox; I'm not sure if the set-up is the same as the larger engines and BE 'boxes?



I've tried, but I'm not sure I can do it well enough yet to give conclusive results. Most of the time it's led to a variety of crunching noises, but on my way home today I tried again and it might have helped it go in. On the other hand I might have just been going slow enough already. I'll keep trying and report back.