grex827

OK, so the car in question is a practcally bone stock 88 GT. The problem: My clutch cable keeps breaking. I replaced the cable originally about 2 years ago, when I brought the car back into service (long story), and I converted over to a manual adjusting kit from UPR. That cable lasted until this past November, when the cable broke inside side of the firewall. Then, last friday, it broke again. This time about 6 inches from the bracket bolted to the side of the engine compartment. Then, today, 40 miles later, it broke again, this time further down, close to where the steering column meets the axle. Has anyone had this problem or have any advice, things I should pay attention to when installing it, etc? There doesn't seem to be a lot of option in where you run the cable, but even so, 40 miles? Note that it doesn;t break into two pieces, but its splits and frays enough that the clutch goes to the floor, and is basically just dangling there. Having a car with no clutch in stop and go traffic is a nightmare. Luckily I was able to get it home. Please help.

shaners90lxhatch

How difficult is it to depress? There is either too much tension on the cable (super nasty pressure plate that is too tough for the stock cable, the throwout bearing sleeve is worn, or the clutch fork is not moving freely) or the cable is chaffing. The chaffing thing should be easy enough. Odds are, you have performance clutch and/or thesleeve is worn. The sleeve isknown to fail in this manner and aside from increasing the pedal effort - it can trash the nextweakest point (cable).

grex827

Well, the cabel and the sleeve its in are both brand new. The tension on the clutch feels normal to me, the only thing "abnormal" is that I have the manual adjust kit, with the triple pickup, simply because the stock plastic one had broke. The clutch itself, is stock. In fact, its original. No performance parts on the car. In fact, everything about the car is original except the heater core, alternator, and clutch cable. Its a rock. 158,000 miles, and only small stuff has ever went. This cable baffles me. Is there a heavier duty cable I could buy?

86 5.0L

well the OEM cable is the strongest of all cables....

gspfunk

I would look into a couple of other things:

1--Clutch fork
2--New pressure plate....the stocker could have worn or possibly seized

Those may or may not be the issue, but worth looking at. If the cable was the issue, replacing it would have fixed the breakage problem.

Also, you have a UPR quadrant? Which hook are you putting the cable in? The 1st or 2nd hook are the best...some of the quadrants w/ the 3rd hook put too much of a bend/strain on the cable.

grex827

Thanks for the tips fellas. I will definitely check the clutch fork and presure plate after work, they are original and the car is far from new, so they could very likely be the problem, although they pedal hasn;t become harder to push. Still, very much worth checking. I'll report back later to let you know what I find. I am using the middle notch on the triple pickup, FYI. Thanks, again.