Herbert,

On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:13:07 -0500, Herbert Graf wrote:

>... 
> My boss used to have an old Volvo. One day the clutch cable broke. It
> was on a "bad weather" day, so tow trucks were a LONG wait. After about
> an hour he decided to forget waiting for the tow truck. He put it in
> first, and started the engine, the starter motor getting the car
> going! :) He then crawled along until he reached the garage.
> 
> His story does make me wonder: what percentage of manual cars still use
> a cable for the clutch? Recent cars I've been in all were hydraulic (you
> can tell by the tiny "master" cylinder on the firewall).

I don't think it's necessarily an age thing - every car I've owned, starting with a 1963 Ford Corsair, has had a hydraulic clutch, but I believe in the 
1970s and 80s Ford were using cable clutches.  The first time I had to drive without the clutch release was when a clutch hydraulic pipe (which was 
plastic) somehow moved and touched the exhaust manifold, melting it and letting the fluid out.  I was driving a hundred miles to a client's, and 
contined the journey doing clutchless changes, and while at the client's place got a local garage to replace the pipe, so by the end of the meeting I 
could drive home normally!  More recently I had a clutch release arm shift from its fulcrum, stopping it from releasing the clutch.  I was 120 miles from 
home, and had to drive for the best part of a day doing clutchless changes.

I don't think I'm particularly hard on clutches (I've never worn one out), but having driven over 3/4million miles (that's to the Moon and back, then ten 
laps of the equator :-) you're bound to have things like this happen.

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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