Hi all,
The clutch in my '90 244 with 277k miles recently started slipping under hard acceleration. It's the same clutch since I bought the car about 13 years ago, and I've had no real problems shifting or downshifting, just felt the slippage and decided it was time. I took it to our local specialist because even though I have the skills, I'm almost 60 and have to work without a lift. Long story short, the new clutch won't fully disengage. Can't put it in reverse without shutting off the engine, can't downshift into second. I have more details. The car was originally sold in Rome, Italy if that has any bearing on the issue.
Thanks in advance,
Jeffs1990

 

I'd say bring it right back to the guy who did the job, thats not acceptable, and they should make it right.

wild guess says its mis-adjusted, but having never had a volvo with a stick I dunno if they are hydraulic or cable clutches.

 

I agree with Pierce; take it back to the shop. All 240's are cable adjusted and what you describe sounds like the car should never have left the shop in that condition. Likely the tech was inexperienced with these cars and put the cable and the rubber damper block in an incorrect orientation. A few pushes on the pedal would shift these parts and cause them to settle and realign, giving too much freeplay at the clutch fork.

 

ok, yeah, 240 are cable, 940 are hydraulic.

looks like the adjuster is at the transmission end of the cable. clutches should be fully disengaged when you've pushed no more than about 25-30% of the pedal travel. there should be just a minimum of free play in the pedal before it starts pushing against the clutch springs.

 

Thanks for the replies. I want to give you a little more info: Booked a clutch and rear main seal. The only labor quoted was "re-surface flywheel" at 4.5 hours. Next day got a call that "this is one of the few cars that you can put the flywheel in backwards" so it will take another day. Next day "needs a clutch fork and it's a 3 month wait". Thought about it for about 20 minutes then called the shop and asked how bad it was to drive and learned about the "clutch won't release, can't put it in reverse without grinding, etc". BTW, did not have any of this before, just slipping. My choices were to do without for 3 months or limp along. I picked up the car and paid $978.50 without complaint. Tried to drive for about 2 days and decided it was too ridiculous. Put car on jackstands and wrestled transmission out. Took clutch fork to man with experience weld repairing forks. Fork had really very little wear. Put fork back in and trans up and exact same as before. Adjusted cable through entire range, clutch is always engaged enough that reverse is impossible, downshift to second nearly impossible. At tight end of range, no engagement at all (car won't move) so fork is obviously working. Took trans down again expecting to find friction plate backwards or something, but parts were correct and installed correctly. removed pressure plate and disk and one bolt missing from flywheel. I dread to think that the threads are stripped, hence missing bolt. My conclusion is that "re-surface flywheel" caused distance between pressure plate mounting surface and friction plate surface to decrease such that friction plate is unable to spin freely, even in full disengage position. Sorry to be so wordy, but thought you could follow the thought process. So now I need a flywheel, another discontinued part. Hundreds more dollars. I'm not inclined to return the car to the shop, especially since it is in pieces in the garage. I think I need measurements for flywheel surfaces to confirm out of tolerance. Once again, thanks in advance for your thoughts and wisdom.

 

something still sounds fubar to me. turning the flywheel REMOVES metal, so I would think there should be MORE room for the clutch to disengage.

 

Take a few pictures of the flywheel. My memory is that they are flat so resurfacing will remove metal all across the surface so the clutch cover will bolt to the same plane as the clutch disc will contact; so no difference just a lighter piece.


Next question is did they use the correct parts? Can you get your original parts from the shop that took them out? Compare them to the ones you have now.


Does the clutch cover friction surface protrude below the surface where it bolts to the flywheel? If it protrudes then it will be engaged and will not be able to disengage on a flat flywheel as these are designed to be used on stepped flywheels.


As a foot note, some 200 series cars did come with hydraulic actuation but mostly RHD cars.

 

That is going to be the dog dish fly wheel on that car I believe. Impossible to install these flywheels backwards. Never go back to that shop. If they didn't resurface both upper and lower surfaces, then yes. your clutch will not disengage. I would get green book specs for dog dish flywheel, and take the wheel to a shop and have them correct the surfaces. This is all assuming they only surfaced the lower section... judging by how they installed the flywheel backward, I am pretty sure they might have only done one surface.

Another possibility is the pressure plate distance is wrong in the opposite direction and needs a washer or two to space it off the clutch more...


Correction. 240s did have hydraulic clutches also. only a few of them. The 260s are all hydraulic.
Side note. the 740 hydraulic system basically bolts right in to the 240s also. Only major change is the clutch pedal modifications or find a 260 hydraulic pedal.

 

Hum...


My flywheel that I put in my car is a dog dish flywheel, and when we had it resurfaced, both the clutch engagement surface needed to be machined, and the upper edge. Scratch that... I remember, I didn't have it resurfaced, because of the complication, and the fact that I'm not going for ridiculous horsepower or anything on my car.
Anyway, they probably didn't do the upper edge, because there are some alignment pins that must be removed. Then it is re-surfaced, and the pins replaced.

Oh, here is a picture. Repurposed.

But, there were two style of flywheels, one that was flat and the other that was not, and one uses like a 9 inch clutch, and the other 8.5. (or something like that... the numbers are just off the top of my head...)

It seems like machining only the bottom surface would cause the transmission to have engagement issues, not disengagement issues. Thought: maybe they put the wrong clutch on? I don't see how that would be possible, but something isn't right.

To put in a hydraulic clutch on a 200 series, don't you have to move the clutch fork? I was under the impression that you did...

 

Yep. I said 740 hydraulic system, meaning everything hydraulic related.
The pivot ball location, fork, throw out beating, slave, master, hard and soft lines. Holding bracket. Only major thing to do is modify the stock 240 pedal of find the rare 260 pedal. I use a modified 240 pedal for mine.

 

Do we assume that the clutch disc is installed correctly and not backwards. Also is the pressure plate the correct one for the car. Is the throwout bearing mounted correctly in the fork. Did anyone readjust the transmission linkage. It sounds like the throw out bearing is not releasing the pressure plate. Being reverse is a non syncro gear with the main shaft spinning you cannot get it in gear. When everything is back together and without the clutch cable being attached do you have free play of the clutch fork. Do you still have or can you get the old parts. If so I would compare them to make sure they are the same. I always get my old parts back even if it is just to make sure they were changed. Trust but verify. If it worked before then it should work after renewal.

 

The "fat" side of the disc always goes to the pressure plate side. What condition is the pilot bearing in the crankshaft,and the transmission input shaft boss where it rides. A seized pilot bearing will not allow the input shaft to stop turning the the clutch is disengaged. My theory is; you can't get it into reverse,because reverse is unsynchronized. Forward gears are,and the synchro hub acts like a brake to slow the shaft rotation. Just an idea.

That "pot style" flywheel is similar to the heavy truck double disc flywheels. Any machine shop should be able to pull the dowel pins and machine it.