Floppy Clutch Pedal issue/fix

masertel

Member
Messages
102
On my recent trip with Sports Maserati to the Le Mans 24Hr Beer Festival 2 days in the clutch pedal on my manual 4200 went floppy and stopped working. It had been getting progressively worse then one morning when I got in the car it had gone completely.

The AA came to the rescue and arrange for the car to be lifted and transported to a local garage in France for repair. The AA were fantastic but unfortunately, I can’t say the same of the French Garage that worked on the car. They tried for an hour to bleed the clutch fluid but fail miserably and would not let me work on the car myself (health & safety Blah Blah Blah). It’s a long story so I won’t bore you with the detail only say that after 4 days of them fecking around I politely ask for the keys and drove the car home with no clutch pedal working. It can be done- start the car in first gear and massage the gearbox to go into 6th.

Once home I put the car on the ramp and for the life of me couldn’t get the clutch fluid to bleed through but unlike the French didn’t give up. Checked in and around the pedal box and noticed the pedal could be pulled back a couple of mm even though the spring-loaded pedal was back as far as the spring could pull it. After manually pulling the pedal back a couple of millimetres the fluid in the reservoir started to drop and I had no problem bleeding the system using a suction bleeder attached to the bleed nipple mounted conveniently below the clutch housing.

I suspect that has our cars get older the spring that is attached to the clutch pedal weakens slightly and the pedal does not return far enough the allow the fluid to feed into the clutch pump/master cylinder. The tolerance in the clutch master cylinder is very tight and the pedal must return fully after being press in- a shortfall on the pedal return of only 2mm is enough to stop the fluid entering the master cylinder.

Hope this info helps anyone else on the forum that is having a similar issue with their Manual clutch pedal getting a bit floppy under foot.

All well that ends well and not a difficult fix when you know what the problem is. If only the French garage had let me fiddle at the car when they had it on their ramp- would have saved me a rather unpleasant drive back from Le Mans :-(

Big thanks to Steveo and Mark who kindly chauffeured Brian and I around at Le Mans while the car was laid up. Once again Sports Maserati to the rescue!! :)
 

masertel

Member
Messages
102
Thanks Newton- clutch pedal is now better than it has ever been- Result!! How's the BBQ going? Enjoyed the grub at Le Mans - you cook up a mean Bar B :)