What’s a sign of a bad clutch cable?

Here is my symptom on my 91 EF hatch dx. I do not feather/ride on my clutch or pop the clutch. When I’m in traffic and I’m in and out of 1st and 2nd gear after a while I get very difficult to get it into 1st. I can get it into 2nd if I rev match the rpm but it takes A LOT of muscle to get it into 1st. The rest of the gears 3rd, 4th, and 5th are ok. When the car is off and have the clutched engaged, I can shift in all the gears without any problem. I have a two months old clutch, flywheel, and bearing and just changed out the transmission fluid.

Your help is greatly appreaciated.

 

sounds like a clutch cable, it's probably not bad it just needs to be adjusted. does it grind when you try to put it in to reverse?

 

There should be about a 1/4inch of freeplay in the pedal before any resistance if its adjusted correctly

 

Yes, it does grind if I try to get it into reverse. I don’t recall EVER getting it into reverse without a grind. Do you recommend just swapping out the cable? I did adjust the clutch cable before changing out my clutch and that worked for two weeks. After that it got worst. I took it to a shop and they said it was my clutch. They said that I might have adjusted the cable too much which in turn wore out the clutch. But now i'm back to my original problem. grrrrr!

 

currently, i feel pressure about half-way when I depress the clutch pedal. You're saying i should feel pressure .25 inches from the top of the depression of the pedal?

 

just throwing out ideas.. but synchro?? if thats going out, it makes first hard as hell to get into.. same as reverse.. happened on my bronco 2 (1988)

 

you have to adjust the cable after you replace the clutch, it sounds like your cable is a little loose and needs to be tightened up

 

Do i also need to look into adjusting the clutch switch clearance?

 

just throwing out ideas.. but synchro?? if thats going out, it makes first hard as hell to get into.. same as reverse.. happened on my bronco 2 (1988)

Reverse isn't hard to get into, just first. I only grind on reverse.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lapulapu &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Do i also need to look into adjusting the clutch switch clearance?</TD></TR></TABLE>no

reverse is the dead giveaway. reverse doesn't have a synchro so if there is movement then it will grind. the only way there would be movement in the shafts in the trans is

1. the car is rolling

2. your clutch isn't disengaging all the way

you need to pick up the slack in the clutch cable

 

yup about a 1/4 inch nothing from the top then pedal and your good to go