Hi, folks!

About 18 months ago, my '83 started a habit of having its clutch cable regularly stretching and needing readjustment. I thought it might be ready to break (sort of failing thread-by-thread), so I replaced it. Soon the new one needed readjustment, so I did. Soon it needed adjusting again. I became worried about the throw-out arm starting to fail. I had my mechanic do a clutch and back end job, and I had him go over the throw-out arm for cracks or distortion. He assured me it was fine.

Here it is a year later, and I've adjusted this cable several times since, and I'm currently out of adjustment latitude. Today I'm going to slip in a piece of 1/4" brass as a shim between the throw-out arm and the rubber block which holds the ball end. This should give me about two months of breathing space before I need to adjust again.

What am I missing here; can cables stretch *that* much? Is it possible that the clutch pedal assembly is slowly distorting in some fashion to throw too much slack into the cable? Any wisdom out there of where to look next?

Thanks!

Rob

Thank you folks -- you've given me good stuff to chew on:

The "current" cable isn't Volvo, it's Beck-Arnley, I believe. The ground straps are all good (recently examined from tracing harness problems). Yes indeed, the pedal end of the sheath is friction-anchored at the firewall. There may be some problems there; I'll check it out. I sure hope the throw-out arm isn't bent. I understand this was a chronic problem with the 140s, and Volvo supposedly upgraded this with the 240 series. However, I *have* heard of 240 clutch throw-out arm failure before, and that's why I had my mechanic check it out. If I can't find anything else wrong (I need to crawl on my back on the floor and make certain the pedal mounts are sound), I may end up dropping the trans and swapping the throw-out arms just for principle. I've got a spare good one. Urgghh...

Rob

I had similar clutch cable problems on my 144, although my cable would always break before it stretched beyond further adjustment.

First, check and clean the ground strap connections from the chassis to the block. If the ground is bad then the clutch cable gets used as the ground path which can hasten the cable getting brittle.

Second, make sure you're using a genuine Volvo cable. Others may be a slightly different length or of a lesser quality.

Next, you really need to examine a broken cable. If the cable is breaking near the ends then likely the cable isn't routed correctly so it is aligned properly with the cable attachment points. Similarly, the clutch pedal and yoke travel must be in alignment with the cable attachment points. If the cable is breaking near the middle then the cable might be routed with too sharp a bend. Neither situation was obvious in my case, but cable routing turned out to be my problem.

If you don't have a broken cable yet, you should still unhook the cable ends and check it. Pull the cable wire fully in both directions and check for any signs of fraying. If there is any resistance when doing this then the internal cable sheath may have worn through and you likely have some rust starting to bind it. This could well be a sign of incorrect routing. If you turn the cable over 180 degrees so that the cable strands bear against a fresh surface you may be able to get a little more life out of it. I always lubed the heck out a new cable before installing it, if nothing else to keep moisture out.

Hopefully that will give you some ideas.

Rob -

On my 1979 245DL I had the same thing. I finally decided that the throwout arm was bending. The shop that did the repair showed me the arm, it was bent! Car had around 180K miles at the time.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)

I'm not familiar with the manual transmission but check to see it the fire wall where the cable passes to is cracked or rusting out. I maybe wrong but I think the firewall anchors it.