The Darkness Where the Clutch Cable Leaves the Pedal

[amsiegel]

Here is my 2 cents
Go around to some body shops or even better are there any of the shops that do the work on the drag race cars. The guy who did my floor pans also builds drag racers. The race builders do alot of welding and fabriaction plus usually have alot of metal on hand. Plus they are use to doing stuff like this where as a transmission guy might not be. I am not trying to pick on transmission guys. I would let my body shop guy work on the body and transmission guy work on the transmission.

[So Cal Mark]

true, this is pretty much blacksmith type work. The repair doesn't necessarily involve welding. A plate can be fabbed to cover the whole area and attached in a variety of ways.

[majicwrench]

I'm with Mark, $400 seems like a lot, but then we ain't lookin at it either.
That kind of work is hard to quote, you never quite know what you will find, it's not like you can look up the labor time, like you can for a water pump. Gonna be hard, methinks, to find shops to give you a quote.
Got to be some local car club around, find em and give em a call. Or better yet, go to a meeting. They will know who the good shops are, and who would do a nice job fixing that up. Or maybe they would offer to help you do it, all us old guys like helping the newecomers.
I sure wouldn't weld it, except maybe for some spots to hold it back into shape, and when I was done it wouldn't really be pretty either.

It is not really fair for us to give Dave a hard time, we are only hearing one side, but it sure seems to me that you ought to go elsewhere, this guy does not seem to want to work on your car, and sure can't give any customer service.

Keith

[So Cal Mark]

I agree we don't know what Dave's situation is/was at the time. But if he put off a simple clutch job for over a month I would bet he didn't really want to do it. For a professional shop, that's a 4hr job at most. I know what it's like to be a month behind, but I'd find time to do a lucrative quick job like that in a heartbeat.

[adrians]

Agreed - welding up the firewall is not the hard bit here.

For the majority of Spiders here in Oz we have to attach an additional plate for the clutch and brake booster to attach to, given the fact of the conversion from LHD to RHD, otherwise the firewall always cracks or bends, someone on the forum's even has the template for the metal.

[bwilson27]

Yeah, of course the clutch is gonna be hard to engage with the firewall being sucked in every time you depress the pedal... You could jam that sucker down as far and hard as you can and all you'd be doing is tearing that metal more and more- and the clutch would barely release, the cable would have no tension (well, not enough tension).
Guys like Dave's Transmission are scammers. I'm from Edmonds, too, and I know the shops in that area, and I know to just stay away. I guarantee that your clutch was fine and replaced for no reason or probably not replaced at all. If they actually replaced the clutch, that big rip in the firewall where the clutch cable goes through would be obvious. My guess is that one of Dave's crummies jammed the firewall back together enough to make the cable work again and called it good.

Then again, they may have really replaced the clutch, for no reason, other than you told them it needed a new clutch. Guys like that will take you quite literally, and repair only what you asked for, even if it's obvious to them that it's something totally different. If you must go to a shop, at least don't try to diagnose the problem. Tell them to figure out what is wrong, then repair it.
Better yet, avoid mechanics. DIY is better and cheaper.

[bwilson27]

Also- You have a nice car there, don't give that baby up!

[So Cal Mark]

Better yet, avoid mechanics. DIY is better and cheaper


now, now, please don't stereotype

[bwilson27]

now, now, please don't stereotype

I knew that line would get a reaction.

[majicwrench]

More reaction.....
Bwilson, how can you "guarantee" it didn't need a clutch?? Did you get a look at it?? If you want to say "I'll bet it doesn't need a clutch" I could buy that. But he drove out with what he described as " a great feeling clutch" so they obviously repaired something. And despite the bad rep that mechanics have, and some deservedly, not one of the hundreds of mechanics I have known would claim to have replaced the clutch if they had not.
Keith

[bwilson27]

The last shop I went to in Seattle charged me 1000.00 for "Replacing the Head" on my old Toyota Cressida.
On the way home it blew out a bunch of smoke, and when I checked it out thoroughly I saw they had only put a few cans of cheap block sealer in it (probably something like K&W). I ended up winning in small claims court.
That was back in '95... I'm still kinda biased because of that.

[BartusCompater]

Well I just got my car back from Dave's and my wallet is $350 dollars lighter. I noticed as I was driving out that the clutch still isn't disengaging all of the way. From having the clutch pedal released in neutral, it's still tough to get it into 1st or Reverse unless I first push it into 3rd or 4th. So I pulled a U turn and brought it back into the lot. Dave himself brought be back into the garage to take a look at it.

What he told me was this (and I don't know what to think of it because I don't know a lot about how the clutch works): He said something along the lines of the throw bearing doesn't have much more to go, and that because it's a new clutch it might not be getting quite enough clearance. Also, I've got a few layers of padding inside the car which he says might be preventing the pedal from reaching just the tiny bit further that it needs to fully disengage (one of the previous owners redid the interior, I think). So basically he said that I could either try removing some of that padding and/or just getting used to popping it into 3rd or 4th before putting it in gear if I let the pedal out in neutral. He also said that the clutches they are making know are being made to fit a broader range of models, and that it might not be perfect for my year.

As far as the hole in the firewall: Yesterday I called around to a few body shops and I couldn't seem to find a place that would want to remove the stuff they needed to as well as weld up patch up the tear in the firewall. I called Dave's afterwards and asked the receptionist to have Dave give me a call back (he was busy at the time) so that he could explain what exactly he was going to do with my car, if he'd be able to guarantee it, etc.

They didn't call me back until today, when it was already finished. They simply welded around the tear, and said that putting a plate in would have required tearing into a bunch of stuff like the dash.

I don't really know what to think--I have a new clutch, and the hole is sealed. The clutch still isn't disengaging all the way. Other than that, it feels good. The position I'm in is pretty frustrating. Given that my knowledge on the whole clutch system is limited, I couldn't really retort to Dave and say anything like "YOU GUYS REPLACED MY CLUTCH AND IT HAS COST ME 800 DOLLARS, WHY ISN'T IT PERFECT?!"

In the end, they did give me the business card for a guy who works on foreign cars such as Fiat's, so I won't have to be going back there again. Unless the firewall tears again. (Is it bad that I'm hoping it will, so that they'll refund my money and admit that it was their fault?)

[Newell33]

Sorry to hear about your situation. Please don't take offense to this but a lot of the guys on this forum have quite a bit of automotive experience. I think the consensus was that it would be ill-advised to feed this guy any more dollar bills. Unfortunately, some things are learned the hard way.

Good luck

[majicwrench]

Bartus,
WIthout really seeing the damage and the repair to the firewall all we are doing is taking an experienced guess, but my experienced guess would be that the firewall will tear again. All that I have repaired I have put in some sort of plate. The metal there has been seriously stressed. Not sure what he did for $350 without putting some sort of reinforcement in there.

Removing excess pading under pedal very good idea. I have seen cars with five and six floor mats all piled together, and people can't push their clutch in, and can't give em full throttle.

At this point, you are right, clutch should be perfect. How much free play is there?? HAve a buddy watch the firewall and depress the clutch, it should not move.

Did you ever call the Better Business people?? You are getting the shaft here.
Keith

[So Cal Mark]

The good that I have deduced from this is, you weren't overcharged for the new clutch. $450 for a clutch replacement is on the low side if Dave used all new clutch parts.
The possibility of thick carpet is true.
The line about generic clutch parts is bs. Sure, some parts fit various vehicles but mfgs don't compromise a part and apply it when it's not designed for that vehicle.
I think part of the problem with this whole repair is that Dave and his crew aren't familiar with Fiats. It's not common for cars to have broken firewalls and bent clutch pedals (unless you work on old VWs). If you weren't familiar with that you wouldn't normally look there.
As for the firewall repair, I too think it will crack again. Probably right next to the repair. Without seeing his repair, I don't want to dismiss it but I hope he added material to strengthen it.
So after all is said and done, if you car had come into my shop for those two jobs the bill probably would have been similar to what you paid. The clutch replacement would have been a little more expensive and the firewall a little less.
Now though, it's important to get it the way it should be. Since you have a referral to someome with Fiat experience I'd go introduce yourself as a potential new customer and ask him to evaluate the firewall situation. Since Dave referred you there, I wouldn't even mention that Dave did the repair. Merely ask him if he feels the repair is adequate.