Clutch problems - read this first!

[cwspellowe]

Bit of information for those that don't know, and a couple of pictures to help explain.

Symptoms

Heavy clutch pedal
Clutch pedal not fully returning
Bite point getting closer to the floor with use

Similar issues? Hold on.. before you go and spend the best part of £120 on a clutch kit and cable, take a look at the side of your clutch pedal. See that spring/plastic sleeve kind of assembly below that's probably there? Get rid, f*ck it in the bin.



Part 5 on the exploded diagram



Why remove it?

This is the clutch pedal assist spring, fitted by Peugeot to give the clutch a "sportier" feel. What a lot of people don't realise is that a tech update from Dealers on 306's from new advised removing the spring assembly if a customer complained about it. Now, it wasn't a recall, and most 306's will still have the spring assembly present. Normally it's not an issue but can cause some misleading symptoms.

Firstly, the clutch pedal appears to stick about 1" from the normal resting position. No problem, bit annoying to flick the pedal out with your toes occasionally, but it WILL get worse.

What happens next is the self adjuster in the cable takes this stuck position as resting and adjusts the cable to this new position. The bite point then creeps down to the floor to the point it's hard to get in gear.

Ignore it much longer, and the cable fails, no doubt soon to be followed by the clutch. Catch it in time and it may just be a case of removing the spring, in my case I had to replace the cable as the ratchet had seized at max adjustment and I couldn't get the bite point back from the floor again, although removing the spring assembly allowed the pedal to travel all the way up again.

Here's the state of my old cable. Ignore the frayed heat shielding, that's from having it resting against the exhaust on the gti and it getting burned.



Self adjuster looking pretty fine, but had reached the end of its adjustment and got stuck through drying out/poor pedal position





Thankfully my bite point has now returned to normal and the clutch feels much lighter now with the new cable. Just an "FYI" for anyone else having similar issues before they dive in and replace the whole clutch. Could save you anything up to £120-odd if this fixes it