Recently saw a manual zed with a poorly gearbox / clutch, due to an odd grating noise in the gearbox area which had prompted the owner to find a replacement gearbox and had a garage change it and fit a new complete clutch kit at the same time.

 

Its does not take much imagination to understand his disappointment after collecting his car and finding the noise still there and worse within a short space of time selecting gears became very difficult to select, eventually back at the garage it became stuck in 2nd gear and that was it.

 

So it was recovered to the workshop as the other garage were unable to find the cause of the problem??? it was at least in neutral now!

 

With the zed up in the air the clues to the problem were easy to see, the clutch fork was twisted over and the slave cylinder was very extended, in fact dipping the clutch had very little effect as the fork was so badly positioned, little wonder selecting gears was such an issue.

 

So the gearbox was dropped and the clutch fork, bearing and bearing carrier was removed, at first look it could be easy to not see a problem if unfamiliar with zeds.

 

 

The clutch fork bridge was misshapen to a point where the bearing carrier side shoulders had worn excessively and in turn was allowing the fork to twist enough for the spring retainer to slip off.

 

 

See how when compared to a good used one how the fork can turn around the bearing carrier and in the last picture how wide the fork bridge had become, how this damage had occurred is a mystery but surfice to say a new fork and bearing carrier and gearbox refitted all was good again and the grating noise...... GONE! from marks on the clutch cover the fork was just catching the spinning cover due to the twisting action.

 

 

 

 

Damaged fork and bearing carrier assemblies can be responsible for many clutch issues and should not be overlooked, one mistake that sometimes occurs is the bearing carrier is available in different lengths to accomodate different clutch kits, get these wrong and biting point issues can occur.

 

Thanks to Jamie for swiftly sorting it out.

 

Jeff TT

Edited December 15, 201015 yr by JeffTT

I want your workshop!:cool2:

was in there today . very nice place

Thanks Jeff - an interesting read :)

This is the solution to my clutch problem that the 'specialists' couldn't find the last two times i crunched my way to them!

I'll let you know how the "Fix it on the warranty" argument goes :p