Clutch that Won't

I have a '91 Subaru Legacy which decided to stop going into gear.

Returning from the garage where I had a new tire put on, I pulled into my driveway and my clutch stopped releasing.

I can start this manual shift car fine but it refuses to let me shift into gear when running. The initial symptom was a failure of the clutch pedal to return after being depressed.

This car has a cable clutch linkage. I started at the pedal and put WD-40 on everything I could see . Note that this cable linkage is connected, at the clutch lever ( fork?) with another cable that connects to a small spring gizmo on the body beneath the power steering master cylinder.

I cannot see any obvious breaks in th3e cable but ???

BTW, why do car part sites show clutch master cylinders for this car? I can’t see anything that looks like that on either side of the firewall.



Help!!!

Well, one of two things happened: either the clutch cable broke, or the pressure plate fingers broke. Hope for the former rather than the latter.

Try working the clutch release fork with your hand (if you can see it). If there is some spring action, then you have a linkage problem, but if you can move it around, it’s probably the pressure plate.

Unfortunately it moves a lot. The cable appears fine.

Figures. Whenever I put new tires on a car, it self destructs. Now I merely need to sell my house to get a new clutch.