Clutch Stuck?

[Jimmy]

I picked up a '91 L with a 5 speed last night. The car has minor flood damage, but it started easily with a jump and drove home with no problems.

This morning the car fired right up with no jump start but when I tried to drive it I found that the car wouldn't go into gear, it's like the clutch is stuck.

If you try to shift into gear when the car is running, it grinds. If you try to start the car in gear with the clutch pressed in, the car rolls as if you didn't have the clutch pressed.

My first reaction was that water got into the clutch fluid and I would need to bleed it out. I popped the hood and realized that it's a cable clutch.

So I thought maybe the clutch cable had rusted out broke when I pressed it the first time this morning, but I was able to watch the transmission end of the cable while I pressed the pedal and it seems to be operating properly.

So what else could it possible be? The only thing I could figure was that the clutch disk rusted to the plate or flywheel or that the pressure plate just gave out.

Is there anything else? Anything common that happens to Festies that causes this or am I stuck doing a clutch?

[Gforcefd]

if you drove it home the day before without a problem, I dought that the clutch disc actually rusted to the pressure plate. Your probably going to have to pull the engine and tranny apart anyways just to find out. But you can change the tranny fluid first just to make sure.

When you push down the clutch pedal, is there plenty of resistance? Like does it feel like the cable is actually pulling on something. Does the pedal stick? Hangup?

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the reply. It's fixed. It was just rusted. I put the car in third gear and pressed the clutch in and cranked the engine and it broke it free.

Now to just get rid of the smell...




And do a BP swap...

[oldgrezmonke]

Now to just get rid of the smell...

try baking soda.