hello everybody i am having issues with my clutch or clutch cable. i recently changed out my cable, quadrant and installed the firewall adjuster to my car and prior to that, the clutch, when pressing the pedal IN, would feel like it was sticking/rubbing/and had a lot of unusual tension to it. like it was rubbing against something. it would cure itself after being at the drag strip and after a couple of days, become a little more difficult to depress and it would feel sticky and not smooth.

after installing the new stuff, my cable was kind of tight and the clutch would engage pretty high up in the travel of the pedal. i messed with it and tried backing the wire out of the adjuster to make it looser a lot and finally got it down to a reasonable area, but the stickyness is back and it feels worse. when the car is off, the motion of the pedal going IN would feel fine and smooth. when turning it on, taking it out after starting it up, you can feel a very odd feeling in the pedal. almost a vibrationy feeling, but it is not a smooth engagement/disengagement of the clutch at all. after first installing the cable and everything else, the clutch responded very quickly when taking off in first and going into every gear. it was very responsive and almost felt like i had a new clutch. now it is sluggish going into first and the clutch pedal just feels awful. it feels like the cable is about to snap or something.

on the tranny, where the cable connects a plastic piece into the hole for the cable to go through to attatch to the bellhousing, the cable is rubbing on the side of that plastic cylinder that connects the black tubing onto the cable. could that be the problem?
could i have routed the cable wrong?
-i forgot the actual position of the stock cable so i threaded it through where i thought it went and it might be wrong?
could my cable be stretched?
could i have done something wrong?

also, no matter how far i back the adjuster out to loosen the cable, the TOB still spins on the shaft.

any ideas anybody? i'm almost afraid to drive the car in this condition?

 

The TOB is supposed to be spinning at all times, no way around that.

What cable did you buy? I had binding clutch cable feeling with my stock cable. replaced with a MM OEM style cable and the clutch is butter now.

 

^

Do you have any pics? i'm having a tough time visualizing what your describing.

 

The TOB is not supposed to be spinning at all times. When the pedal is released the TOB should be positioned so that it is not touching the Belleville spring fingers.

The perfect cable adjustment is to set the cable to no slack and no tension, which means the clutch lever will be at its rearmost position and the TOB will be withdrawn and not contacting the clutch spring--this will also result in a pedal free-play of 1-1/4" to maybe 1-3/4" if the clutch components are in good shape.

If you examine a Mustang TOB you will see that they are not designed for constant rotation. They are not sealed assemblies (which wouldn't last at high rpms anyway) and have only minimal shielding.

99.44% of the noisy TOB problems I have personally corrected involve the clutch cable's being too tight. In some instances no damage has been done and loosening the cable will make to noise go away, however in others where it has been allowed to go on too long the TOB will have been prematurely worn (spinning all the time causes it to throw out the grease viscous load, and allows dirt and grime to work their way in) and the TOB must be replaced.

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¹ - From RAM Clutch's Quadrant & Adjuster installation document:
Here's another quote from PowerTrain Technology's installation guide:

 

ok so ill loosen it.

but does anyone have any idea of what might be wrong with my clutch cable? i really need help on this because i am clueless

 

Don't just "loosen it" for the sake of doing so, how much free play does the pedal have?