Clutch pedal broke!!

[scarecrow]

I was just driving down the road as usual, making a left turn. Pressed in the clutch and I heard this loud pop from under the dash and the clutch pedal went floppy. I don't know if the quadrant broke or the cable. It still starts up fine so the clutch is disengaged. I tried to take a look at it but it's so hard to see underneath the dash. I think honestly I'm going to take it to the Firestone here on Camp Lejeune. I think this repair is beyond me..

[Marz]

What? Replacing a cable? Fairly easy with simple tools and a floor jack. But, you'd have to be sure it's the cable.

[scarecrow]

Yeah I can't tell what's broken at all. I hate not working on my own car but I really can't see or feel a thing under there.

[84lxvert]

Seems a little weird that the clutch is disengaged (or engaged for the backwards folks ) with an apparent broken cable or quadrant. Do you still have a working clutch pedal safety switch? Aftermarket quadrant? Aftermarket cable?

[STL79Coupe]

It's a lot easier to look and work on the under dash stuff with the seat removed.

[scarecrow]

That's what I thought too. When I was having some of my friends push the car out of the road they asked me if it started up.. I thought it probably wouldn't but it fired right up. I know for a fact that my Mustang doesn't start up without the clutch disengaged too. Which kind of makes me wonder if it was the cable or quadrant. After a lot of brainstorming I figured I'd just take it somewhere instead. I'm not sure if any of the parts are aftermarket or not.

[Hissing Cobra]

Man, you'll save yourself a LOT of money if you took 15 minutes to look at things. Take a socket set out to the car and remove the 4 nuts that hold the driver's seat to the floor and then remove the seat. Bam, 5 minutes gone by. Take the next 5 minutes to fold a blanket up into a nice thick, soft cushion and lay it onto the floor over the studs so that you won't get stabbed in the back. Take the next two minutes and look up underneath the dashboard with a flashlight. As you're doing that, move the clutch pedal in and out to see what's moving up underneath the dash. You should see a quadrant (look online to find pic's of these so that you know what you're looking for). If it's an aftermarket unit it may be anodized aluminum or aluminum in color. If it's a factory quadrant it would be plastic. Keep moving things until you see the cable. If the cable isn't moving, shine the light onto the firewall while your under there until you locate the area where the cable comes in from the engine compartment to see if it's broken there. If no breaks are apparent, jack the car up and look at the other end of the cable where it meets the fork arm for the clutch. I have a hunch that your cable is broken somewhere and you should be able to figure it out in under 15 minutes. If you can operate a socket set or a wrench set, you can fix your cable in less than 30 minutes if you have a new one on hand.

[Hissing Cobra]

Man, you'll save yourself a LOT of money if you took 15 minutes to look at things. Take a socket set out to the car and remove the 4 nuts that hold the driver's seat to the floor and then remove the seat. Bam, 5 minutes gone by. Take the next 5 minutes to fold a blanket up into a nice thick, soft cushion and lay it onto the floor over the studs so that you won't get stabbed in the back. Take the next two minutes and look up underneath the dashboard with a flashlight. As you're doing that, move the clutch pedal in and out to see what's moving up underneath the dash. You should see a quadrant. If it's an aftermarket unit it may be anodized aluminum or aluminum in color. If it's a factory quadrant it would be plastic. Keep moving things until you see the cable. If the cable isn't moving, shine the light onto the firewall while your under there until you locate the area where the cable comes in from the engine compartment to see if it's broken there. If no breaks are apparent, jack the car up and look at the other end of the cable where it meets the fork arm for the clutch. I have a hunch that your cable is broken somewhere and you should be able to figure it out in under 15 minutes. If you can operate a socket set or a wrench set, you can fix your cable by installing a new one in less than 30 minutes if you have one on hand.

[Tracer]

One day I was taking my nephews out for a ride and went to fill in gas. Didn't notice a snap at all but when I got back into the car the clutch was loose and it would not go into gear. I was able to push the car and get it into second and made it home. I did notice that the shifter was going hard into gears before the clutch went limp. I took the seat out and did what Pete stated above and found that the clutch cable jumped off my aftermarket quadrant. Lifted the front of the car and loosened the cable at the trans and had the clutch cable hooked up and adjusted in a about an hour. I suspect the cable was loosening up on me and that is why it was hard to get into gear. I thought my clutch was on the way out. After setting up the clutch cable it worked perfectly again. I have never experienced that before and I have owned lots of standards. I have to get a firewall adjuster so I don't have to lift the car every time.

If the cable has come off then a Tip is to hook the cable on the quadrant and put a rubber band over the cable where it hooks in so that it does not fall off when hooking everything up at the trans.

[Travis T]

I've even had the pedal itself break, the part the quadrant attached to broke at the weld.

[86GTFoxBody]

dont replace it with a MM clutch cable, just buy the ford motorsport cable. I went through 2 MM cables in a very short amount of time, bought the ford cable and knock on wood havent had a problem yet.

[Marz]

I've had my MM cable for years. NO problems.

[Hissing Cobra]

For what it's worth, I had a Steeda cable in mine and it lasted less than 2 years before it froze up and wouldn't even move within the sheathing - even with it clamped in a vise and me pulling on the cable end with a pair of vise grips. I replaced it with a used stock cable and it's been in there for the past 8 years without any issues.

[scarecrow]

So I was talking to my friend who's out on a deployment at the moment. I told him I wanted to take it somewhere to get it fixed. He called me a ****** and told me to fix it myself. So I guess I'm fixing my own car.. lol. I have one of the Haynes books so I figure the instructions are in there somewhere and I have the auto hobby shop here on base.

This is going to be a pain in the six.

[Hissing Cobra]

It really isn't. You're putting way too much thought into it. Follow my instructions above and you'll see within 15 minutes how easy it is.

Watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhBL1TZY-7s

Here's another one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZxb1eLxWcA

There are lots of videos on Youtube.com that you can watch to get yourself familiar with the procedure before you jump on in.

I'm just trying to help ya, that's all.

[spxer]

hell i was in jacksonville yesterday doing a service call..if i'd known i'd reach out to help

[scarecrow]

I fixed it.. Taking the old cable off was easy because when I took the dust cover on the transmission the cable pretty much just fell off when I touched it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. The clutch is a lot more stiff now. It's almost a completely different car.

[STL79Coupe]

Youtube, has helped me out a ton of times. Now you can buy more parts with the money you saved.

[scarecrow]

Thanks for the motivation guys! I'm going to go eat a bottle of aspirin now because my body is killing me.

[brianj]

Hey, at least you aren't a ******.

[scarecrow]

lmao that counts too. We call each other that all the time though.

Oh and back on topic, about the clutch pedal being stiff.. will it stop being stiff after a while?

[Hissing Cobra]

Congrats on the repair! Usually when the pedal is stiff it could be a couple of different things. The clutch could be a heavy duty aftermarket unit, the cable itself could be binding on something, or the cable sheathing could be on the way out which causes the cable to not want to pass through it. Did you use a brand new cable? Did you make sure that it's not kinked/bent in a funny manner anywhere?

[Tracer]

Good job!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[musicman8287]

Hey, at least you aren't a ******.

haha! Nice.

Btw, when I first got my '83, 2 clutch cables from Autozone both failed and left me stranded. Tag said "won't work on anything not stock", but second one cracked my quadrant, which was stock. Both cables were VERY hard to get on (too short IMO) and very stiff as well. I am new to mustangs so had no experience to gauge by. Finally went w Ford Racing firewall adjuster, billet quadrant and non-adj clutch cable. Night and day difference, smooth as butter. Installation was so easy I quickly realized the Autozone cable is just crap. Perhaps yours is set too short? Also, a few pictures on google image search are available to show proper cable routing. Just in case you're not sure, this one helped me

Good luck!

[scarecrow]

I was thinking it might be to short. I tried to make the curve as smooth as possible and it helped with the stiffness.. But it's still a lot stiffer than it was before it broke. If it's too short can't that hurt the clutch? Having to use a pry bar on the fork to make it reach the cable seems a little odd to me.