930 clutch help!! Wayne??

[wrx paul]

I got a 88 930 a few weeks ago and I'm having a lot of trouble adjusting the clutch. I have Waynes project book but the clutch horseshoe spring is different than the one in the book for 915's. Mine is a bit bigger and is really weird. I disconnected the cable and adjusted the clearances according to the book anyway, but still cant get it to feel right. My 911 clutch is fine but this 930 is grabbing right at the top of the pedal. Everytime I try to adjust it, it never returns to the rest unless I pry it back with a bar. The horseshoe spring doesnt seem to return it and it looks like it rubs on the tranny itself. I'll post pics if my description isn't good enough.

[john walker's workshop]

loosen the two 15mm wrench size nuts on the cable sheath so you get a lot of slack in the rearward part of the cable. pry the long arm back against it's stop. adjust the proper clearance between the long and short arm. take up the slack in the cable with the two nuts until the pedal engages the clutch where you want it. the nuts/sheath adjustment is basically the pedal height adjustment.

[WERK I]

Here are some "before" pictures I took of the clutch adjuster just before the teardown. Maybe you can use these as a reference?

[Wayne 962]

What John said - I think that's basically what the book says. Is the problem with the pedal not returning?

-Wayne

[wrx paul]

Originally posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts
What John said - I think that's basically what the book says. Is the problem with the pedal not returning?

-Wayne

Yeah Wayne, I adjusted it like the book said to 1.2 mm then down to 1mm with the cable. Once the pedal is depressed the gap is gone and it doesnt return to the stop.

Looks just like the first pic werk posted. You can see the stop just across from the cable attachment point and his looks like it does the same thing. I'm thinking about opening up the gap more to get the clutch more down to the floor?? Is this a bad idea? The car had a new clutch last year so I know its bad to assume but in this case I don't know what to think? I just wish there were more books on the 930's.

[john walker's workshop]

loosen the cable sheath nuts to lower the pedal. in other words, put some slack in the cable. the gap between the arms is to let the throwout bearing relax, not for adjusting pedal height. sometimes the long arm is not moving freely on it's shaft, (like rusty), and you have trouble keeping the gap present. sounds like you just have the cable too tight, and when it's too tight, the long arm and spring may not return to the stop.

[wrx paul]

I tired that and it just makes the pedal not return to full height. Weird?

[WERK I]

No, not weird at all. That is the helper spring located on the pedal console doing its thing. Drove myself crazy trying to adjust the clutch under the car, only to find the pedal moved because of it. Put something under the clutch pedal to prevent it from moving down. Believe it or not, you're almost there. Got back under the car and adjust the cable slack with the nuts under the cable bellows.

[logician]

Paul,

I had a similar problem when I adjusted my newly installed 930 clutch. Two ideas:

1) Did you do as John suggested: "pry the long arm against it's stop"? This is very important. The C shaped spring is "bistable" and so it has two states it can be in with lever either toward the front or toward rear of the car. You want to start with the long lever cocked to the position toward the rear of the car. Be very careful when cocking that spring because it applies a lot of force to the mechanism.

2) I found that the factory specified method really didn't work with my new clutch, and IIRC it behaved as you describe: the clutch pedal didn't return completely. I had to adjust the gap between the long and short levers to be a little less than the factory spec. So I would suggest that you try turning the adjusting screw on the short lever to reduce the gap. Try adjusting the gap to almost zero just to see if you can get the pedal to return correctly. Then increase the gap as much as possible toward the factory spec, while still allowing the pedal to return correctly.

BTW, you might need to move the short lever one spline if it on the wrong one. Also you may need to move the locknut on the screw to the other side of the lever to get the right adjustment. Who know's if some previous mechanic changed those things around.

John, Wayne, do you guys find that the 930 clutches sometimes can't be adjusted correctly following the factory spec? Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I couldn't figure out what.

-Juan

[wrx paul]

Thanks guys!
We had a tech bbq for our club on sat and after they were done tech'ing the cars for the glen they put my car on the lift to demonstrate a clutch adjustment. Everyone was like "hey this is the same yet different than our cars"
I have the cable adjusted the best I can, I think. If it is on the stop the pedal is fine but it keeps about an inch of free play and this keeps it off the stop about 3mm. If I pull the pedal up it just bows the cable so I don't think I can adjust that any further. The bolt on the big arm is touching the small arm unless I push the big arm back to the stop. I know I might have to live with it cause the car drives fine, I just dont like the engagement point on the pedal being so high. If I increase the gap on the arm bolt wont this lower the engagement point?
Anyone know why this is different than a 915? Why can't they just keep things the way they were? Clutch too big for the old style arm?

[john walker's workshop]

lower the pedal by slacking off on the cable, not increasing the clearance between the arms. like i said previously, the long arm possibly is not moving freely on it's vertical shaft, causing your problem with it not wanting to return to the stop. they get rusty. you would have to remove it to see. make a drawing of how the horseshoe spring attaches so you won't have trouble on reassembly.

[logician]

Originally posted by wrx paul
The bolt on the big arm is touching the small arm unless I push the big arm back to the stop. I know I might have to live with it cause the car drives fine, I just dont like the engagement point on the pedal being so high. If I increase the gap on the arm bolt wont this lower the engagement point?

I don't think you want to drive around with zero gap on that adjustment bolt between the arms because that will put constant force on the throwout bearing -- like driving around with your foot on the clutch pedal. There has to be some gap when the clutch is not engaged.

What you describe is what I observed with my 930. In my case the problem was that the gap set by the adjustment bolt on the clutch lever was too large, so that the long lever was never pushed far enough back to "go over center". Thus the horse shoe spring remained in the forward state, not the backward state. I found that by tightening up the gap, the short lever would exert enough force on the long lever to throw it over it's center point and the long lever would move fully to its stop toward the back of the car.

Maybe there is something else wrong with our setups, like the John suggested, with something binding, or maybe bent. But after writing this out, it occurs to me that there is another possibility.

In my case, the clutch disk that I used was a spring type disk (maybe same as for 915?) instead of the stock rubber centered 930 clutch disk. I'm thinking that perhaps that different clutch disk has slightly different properties such that the restoring force on the short lever, or maybe the position, is different. If so, maybe that is why it would need slightly different adjustment than specified by the factory manual. Do you know if you have the 930 rubber centered clutch disk in your car?

In any event, if doing what John suggests doesn't help, try tightening down on that adjuster screw to see if you can get the long lever to throw over center and rest against it's stop.

-Juan

[930 Guy]

I had a similar problem on my 930. Found the clutch cable had stretched due to no slack as book says to have. Don't get an aftermarket one, dealer cable is larger.