Clutch Pedal adjustment.

I have absolutely no free play in my clutch pedal. If I depress it even an inche I can shift with no grinding of gears. This scares me because I am afraid that the clutch is not engaging all the way. Is there a simple way of adjusting for free play in the clutch??? This is a '68 spitfire with the three rail tranny. TIA

I am not exatly sure about the '68 but my '80 uses a hydraulic clutch system which makes it unadjustable.

An inche depression sounds about right. I have two early Spits and I wuould say mine is about the same. If you are really worried about it you can machine down the length of the push rod on the throwout bearing assembly. Before I went to all that trouble I would make sure I have the correct throwout bearing and carrier installed.

Good luck.

Like virtually all hydraulic clutch linkages, your's is self adjusting and should leave very little free play at the pedal when working correctly.

That said, it's possible that incorrect parts, a clogged clutch master cylinder, a collapsed hydraulic hose or mechanical binding could cause the mechanism to over-adjust. Get under the car (or remove the trans tunnel) and see if there's a small amount of free play in the rod (I'm speaking of the rod that connects the hydraulic slave cylinder to the throwout arm on the bell housing of the trans). Even a small amount of free play probably indicates that everything is OK). If the rod feels tightly trapped between the cylinder and thowout arm, you'll have to look further to solve the problem.

I imagine your setup is similar to Sunbeam.You should have an inch depression of play.On some models the alpine had an adjustable clevis.This allowed one to set the clutch just right. Saying that I ask have you done any clutch work? If so this can lead to problems when reinstalling everything.One problem with alpines is some forget which side to mount the slave cylinder[front or back of the mount]and this would lead to the situation you describe.Also the early pressure plates when reinstalled needed to be reset to specs before installing.The book showed all one needed to do this but it always said replace.I found this out the hard way when it happened to me. Had to pull engine and transmission to do so.
I would definitly look to remedy this as the clutch must be slipping. We are smiling as we got snow for skiing.