Hello Hudson friends,
I have a '37 Terraplane which I recently got back on the road. I put about 30 miles on it driving just around the neighborhood. Last week I was driving about 3 blocks from home when I realized when I gave it the gas, there was no acceleration and in fact the car came to a stop and I had to push it home. The drive shaft and transmission were fine, so the problem is the clutch engagement.
I have put the car back together over a period of years, and the cork clutch plate looked fine when I put it in, likewise the pressure plate. I had refilled the clutch with new fluid last year.
I did notice that the clutch engagement was jerky, not smooth when I put it in gear. After I got it home, I drained the clutch and got about 4 oz of fluid which had turned black, but no pieces of cork. I found that the clutch pedal was tight, not enough freeplay, so I wonder if it did not completely disengage and so I burned the cork faces? I don't see any evidence of clutch fluid leaking.
So my question for you experts would be, if I ran some kerosene in the clutch to clean up the corks, and adjusted the clutch pedal for adequate freeplay, would that cure this? Or am I looking at major surgery?
Thanks in advance!
John
John, I would recommend just adjusting it and maybe changing the fluid, see what happens. Give a call if we can help, thanks Doug
Thanks Doug!
John: this is a long shot, but have you tried putting it in neutral and then attempting to turn the driveshaft by hand (when the car is stationary and the rear wheels are on the ground)?
If the drive shaft rotates under these conditions, you may have a problem within the rear end, and the driveshaft is no longer connected to the rear wheels.
No Jon, I haven't tried that, but I will over the weekend (when I get some stitches out, getting older is a bear) and I'll post the results.
Thanks!
John
Hey Jon, I tried rotating the drive shaft (after my stitches were removed so I can bend my neck), tranny in neutral, rear wheels on the ground, and the rear differential is OK. Next, working on the clutch
Okay, at least we got [u]that[/u] possibility out of the way! Glad to hear the stitches are out.
Hello John,
I was once on a local drive in a '47 Super Six. Suddenly the engine sped up, and was not transmitting power to the wheels. Fortunately I had tools, so I took the transmission out, and then the pressure plate. What had happened was that the springs in the clutch disk had gradually fallen apart. Finally the center of the disk was no longer turning the part of the disk with the corks.
Fortunately the lady at the nearest house had thick wire which she used as a clothes line. She let me have one foot of the wire. I looped as many pieces of the wire where the springs had been as I could, and put everything back together. I drove in a very gentle manner straight to a friendly repair shop.
You can try checking for this!
Per
Interesting! I'll look for that. Thanks Per!
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