Vehicle: HDJ80, 1994, 430,000 km. 5-speed manual gearbox.
Problem: Clutch does not fully disengage. Difficult to select reverse and first gear.
Diagnosis: Cracks in the clutch pedal bracket.
Repair: Weld the bracket.
Difficulty: Simple repair, but difficult access.
It started when the gearbox became difficult to get into first gear or reverse, even when the vehicle was stationary. There was no problem selecting gears with the engine switched off. The diagnosis was that the clutch was not fully disengaging.
I measured the movement of the clutch slave cylinder at 12 mm. Normally, it should be around 15–20 mm.
A little Googling revealed several possible causes, including cracks in the mounting bracket for the clutch pedal – a common problem on this vehicle. I crawled under the dashboard and could see the bracket. Sure enough, when I pressed the clutch pedal, the bracket moved outward. There was also a clearly visible crack around the spring mounting point. Since the bracket was moving, the master cylinder was not getting its full stroke.
So, the bracket had to come out and be welded. That part is not exactly straightforward. There is very little space under the dashboard, and the working position is far from ideal.
The bracket is attached at three points, as shown in the photos. Two bolts hold the master cylinder and bracket together, and there is one bolt up under the dashboard. One of the master cylinder bolts, no 3, has a nut in the engine bay and is easy to remove. The other, number 2, has its nut up under the dashboard in a particularly awkward location.
However, by removing the lower section of the dashboard, I managed to get a socket with a half-metre extension through the wiring harness and reach the nut without too much trouble. The last bolt, no 1, up under the dashboard was also easy to remove with a suitable extension. To improve access, it is probably a good idea to remove the ventilation duct as well.
The bracket and pedal assembly could then be carefully worked out without too much trouble.
As the photos show, there were numerous cracks, creating a permanent gap of several millimetres. The gap also opened up considerably further whenever I pressed the clutch pedal.
I pulled the bracket together with a couple of clamps until the cracks closed up, and then welded all of them. I also reinforced the joints to prevent the cracks from developing again. The bracket is clearly rather under-engineered, with only a couple of spot welds holding the components together.
Assembling
Getting the pedal and bracket back into position went reasonably well, although getting the no 2 nut onto the bolt on the left-hand side was a real struggle. The trick was to hold the master cylinder in position so that the bolt was pointing in the correct direction. I used a wooden wedge to hold it in place, and after some effort I eventually managed to get the nut engaged using the extension.
To get the upper bolt secured, I had to use a mirror and do quite a bit of fiddling around.
Make sure the master cylinder pushrod is connected to the pedal before you bolt everything back together. It is virtually impossible to fit it afterwards. I forgot this and had to loosen the master cylinder nuts again to get the pushrod connected.
After several hours of struggling to get everything back together, I was very pleased to measure a clutch slave cylinder stroke of 18 mm, compared with 12 mm before the repair.
And, most importantly, selecting both reverse and first gear now worked perfectly.
