Australian Cobra clutch question

[Jiffy]

Hi guys
I’m searching for an answer about the clutch setting on my Aussie Cobra.
It’s had a complete terminator swap for about 8 years and is running a 2.3 Whipple and all healthy and happy. clutch I put it in was a Centreforce dual friction about 10-15k miles ago when the drivetrain swap-over was done.
Should there be a little play in the clutch fork (between thrust bearing and pressure plate, or is the thrust bearing meant to be permanently engaged on a 03 drivetrain?
Recall reading somewhere that it was - wanted to check....

 

[01yellercobra]

This one seems to depend on who you ask. I've always ran the TOB touching the clutch. I still have a little play in the clutch pedal so the bearing is just resting against the clutch fingers. I haven't had any problems yet.

 

[MG0h3]

Designed to be on it all the time so it’s always spinning.

I set mine up so there is just enough tension to have it spinning and I can use one finger to push on the fork enough to move it away and it’ll stop. Let go, touched and spinning again.

just to confirm you want it spinning all the time, when I let go of the fork and the TOB hits the PP and starts spinning, nasty chirp and a little spark.

 

[Jiffy]

Excellent guys - thank you. this is where the gear changes seem happiest too.

Even with a little play at the fork, the bite point is too close to the floor and the gear changes at higher revs are unhappy.

remove the play and it all starts to free up but I was worried about the wear on the thrust bearing....

 

[P49Y-CY]

also keep in mind that as the friction disc wears, the pp fingers move rearwards towards the back of the car, so unless you make periodic adjustments to the cable, the throwout bearing gradually presses harder.

i too like a slightly tighter cable better, especially for high rpm shifting.

 

[Jiffy]

I adjusted the clutch a couple of weeks ago and shifting was much better and the bite point was about 40% of the travel up from the floor.
Oddly the bite point already seems to be travelling back towards the floor again - there is negligible play at the top of the pedal travel as was the case when I adjusted it, but I cannot understand why the bite point lowers (I would have thought it would raise as the clutch wears??) and now gear selection and changing is becoming harder again.

Anyone come across this before?

 

[BlckBox04]

What clutch cable and adjuster do you have

 

[Jiffy]

There is no clutch quadrant adjuster on Australian Cobra's - the pedal box is from some other Australian Ford and the cable is a Ford Australia item - about 8-ft long and travels from the top of the pedal through the firewall (right-hand drive remember) and diagonally down across the front of the engine then back through the hole in the back of the block to the clutch fork.
The adjustment is two locking nuts on the threaded part of the cable where is goes through the rear of the block.

I can't imagine the issue is in this part of the setup - it's pretty old-school and doesn't have enough moving parts to cause this issue. I'm imagining that it's something to do with the clutch setup wearing out (after only 15K miles?? - no drag racing or anything other than street driving) but I would have thought the bite point would get gradually HIGHER up the pedal travel, not lower down...

Confused...

 

[Jiffy]

ok - found the problem. It's the cable - the Australian spec cable has been NOTHING but TROUBLE in this car ever since I bought the thing.

So - here's a pic of the US-spec cable next to the longer Australian spec (my spare cable) version for RHD:

You can see the adjuster area down at the clutch fork and see that there's no equivalent on the US-spec one:

At the firewall end, the differences are equally large - there's little resemblance between the US and AU spec versions:

So - my cable that's in the car has broken around the white outer shell of the cable housing. This area is filled with a neoprene-like rubber that is now compressing against the firewall when the pedal is depressed. I'll swap the cables out during the weekend and get some pics before figuring out a fix for it.....

Phew - could have been a LOT worse...

 

[01yellercobra]

Can you take pics of the cable routing? I'm assuming the clutch fork still faces the left side of the car.