clutch quadrant redux

Hi all.

I have been a lurker for quite some time. A little history: I am currently driving my '86 TC, which is my second, the first was an '84. I bought the '86 from the original owner, have all the records of his maintenance. The car is all original, except for replaced wearable items, with 189k on the clock.

To my problem. I recently encountered a clutch engagement problem. It does not seem to disengage completely on occasion. Other times it works without problems. From reading the archives, this appears to be a malfunctioning quadrant issue? There isn't any slippage in the clutch, and when it works properly, it engages right where it always has. I note many refer to the aftermarket billet quadrants. Replacing the cable seems to be part of this, but with a mustang cable?

I may sound dense, but can you shed some light on this for me?

Thanks,
Burt

+1 for the billet quadrant. If you searched you will see me singing the praises of the STEEDA quadrant. I replaced my cable with an adjustable 94-04 Mustang cable (could be a little off on the years), and just had to make a few "tweaks" with a grinder to the bolt end of the cable. HTH, any questions, feel free to ask.

Frank M.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I read about the Steeda, you are not the only one singing their praises.

I am trying to verify this is the actual problem, no need spending money I don't have to. Not yet. That is coming when I do the full rebuild, hopefully next year.

I tried looking up under the dash, but can't really see what is what. Hard to tell if the quadrant pawl is actually engaging or not.

Update on this and a question for the group. This morning, the car ran fine taking the kids to school. I have to sit in line for some time to drop them off, and after doing so, I noticed the "drag" on the engine/transmission. Again, it did not want to shift into gear and I ended up starting the engine with the transmission in gear and taking off at the lights to get home. This got me to thinking about other possibilities. Could this be the pilot bushing or throwout bearing dragging on the input shaft of the transmission? I ask because it seems to NOT be clutch engagement, and when driven slowly, it frees up, like the bearing or bushing cools down enough to not drag anymore?

Anyone have pros/cons with this idea?

This was the first problem I had with my 83 when I bought it in 86. The 'dog bone' cable, about 3" long, was streching and finally broke. These cables break a lot, the reason: the throw out bearing rides on an aluminum bearing retainer which is softer than the steel throw out bearing. The bearing begins to spin after a few miles cause the clip on the clutch fork wears out. When the throw out bearing spins it cuts grooves in the bearing retainer which stops the movement of the clutch fork which interfears with the presure plate hence the faulty clutch engagement. The solution? You will need to replace the brearing retainer with a steel tube one. There are several suppliers, I got a rebuild kit from Hanlon for the entire trannie and his bearing retainers come with a bag of shims which you will need. It's basically a V8 retainer. You will be able to get everything you need except a new clutch fork, you will see how it is worn. I had mine welded up and ground into shape the best I could. If you can't get to the project till next spring, get several dog bone cables; you will be needing them soon.

INteresting. The reason I got the car was the clutch stopped working. I think it had had a clutch replaced a bit before, but the dogbone cable had broken and the PO didn't want to spend any more time on it. That was about 50K miles ago. I am going to see about maybe shimming the cable where it goes through the firewall, just as a test to see if that corrects the current issue.

Thanks for the info. Looks like about time to prepare for a clutch replacement. I had hoped the Jag would be driveable by now so I could do a full resto on the 'Bird. Maybe that will happen soon. I want a new engine, go through the trans, diff, suspension,repaint, new/rebuilt turbo, and she will be good to go.

Except for the intermittent Auto Air controls <sigh>.