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Tips
Tips

Spitfire Spit 1500 Clutch Issues

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Back from a weekend road trip. Not with the spit, unfortunately. Here's the update.

I spent about an hour fiddling with it based on all the advice. Yes, I could shine a light up and see the curve of the end of the arm. No, I couldn't get to any of the pin hole. Did quite a bit of rattling back and forth from the slave cylinder side, but any motions there only made the tiniest movement on the pivot side. Gonna have to drop the tranny.

I guess that's all fairly straight forward if you've got the manual. (Which I do.) I've just never done it before and it's more time and effort than I wanted to go through at the moment.

For future reference, anybody got any special tips for dropping the tranny and putting it back?
 
See above. Open the bleeder, pry on the fork, fluid will come out of the bleeder, the fork will move back, now you can put in the bolt.
 
I have a Spitfire transmission in the basement that I just went down and took a look at what is your situtation. The pivot pin is out of my transmission but the throw out bearing fork is there. I moved the fork to several positions and found that by moving the fork with the slave cylinder peg shaft,I could always get enough of the hole visible to get a small shaft screwdriver down through. If you don't already have the slave cylinder removed from the mount,remove it by taking out the mount bolt that goes down through the mount top to bottom. Slide the slave cylinder back and out of the mount and tie it aside. You don't have to remove the fluid line. Get someone outside the car with a small shanked screwdriver (shank at least "3 long) and with access to the pivot pin hole (top or bottom). Have them try to push the screwdriver through the pin hole (front,back and both sides) while you push,pull and slide left to right on the slave cylinder peg shaft. If you can get the small screwdriver through the fork,you can use it to get the holes lined up so you can get a 5/16 bolt down through the fork. Then you can enjoy the car until cold weather. This winter is when I would do the proper repairs. Let me know if this doesn't work as I'm now finishing changing out transmissions in my '79 Spitfire.

Keith
Heflin, AL.
 
I've already had the slave cylinder off and I've been able to work the fork back and forth a bit. But I cannot get any of the hole to appear at the pivot end. I can see it move and rotate some, but no bit of the hole comes into alignment.

Parts are on order and I'll get around to fixing it right one of these days. Probably not for a couple weeks though. The holiday weekend will be devoted to painting the fixer upper Victorian house...
 
Just an update...
I got it all working. Obviously it needed the new pivot pin. I had a buddy help me out and we got the gearbox pulled back and swapped out pin, sleeve, and bushings with new. Got it all back together. Had to take it apart again to swing the slave cylinder push rod out through it's opening, then back together again. Works great now.

I guess it should since I've "fixed" it five times now.
Put in a new ABS doghouse gearbox cover too...badly needed.

Anyway, I got a nice drive out of it on Labor Day and I can drive the car to work and back a few times now before cold weather comes to Michigan.

Thanks for all the forum help.
 
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