phobos0001

greetings everyone,

my mate has a XE falcon 4spd manual however the motor is out of an XF. he suddenly had no clutch pedal response so i towed him to my house and took a look. the bracket that holds the outer cable still and allows you to adjust the cable was completely missing. we fabricated up a new bracket and all seemed to be well untill the cable broke. we bought a new cable, modified the bracket and it was all good for another day untill the cable siezed up. we thought it was kinked but it had infact melted because it was too close to the extractors. we re-modified the bracket, fabricated a heat shield and but a fiberglass sleeve over the cable, and it still melted.

another problem is where the cable feeds through the firewall was a home made job from before the car was purchaced and it was a challange to get the cable to hold still. the soloution was to get a custom cable made up with another adjustment part on the firewall so we could use the nuts and washers to hold the cable in place

anyone got any suguestions? either the cable is on a bad angle or its too close to the extractors. (theyre genie if it makes a diffrance)

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"He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it"

phobos0001

im guessing no-one's run into this before.

i had a look at a stock setup in a wreckers today and ive been going about this all wrong according to the dude at the wreckers, he seems to think that there was never a bracket on the bellhousing and only one on the firewall.

ill probably mock it up with the broken cable and see what needs to be done.

one thing that looks strange though is when it was working the whole firewall flexes but if thats the way ford made it i guess its normal

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"He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it"

phobos0001

well, my mate got a new clutch cable and we set it up with the cable in the bellhousing without a bracket and it seems to fit alright, the guys who made up the cable made the inner cable about 6-10cm too long, but with some spacers and adjustment we got the clutch going again.

i just have a couple of issues with the current setup now

1: the cable seems to be touching the top of the hole in the firewall, so im wondering if the clutch pedal's position or the firewall are diffrent between the XE and XF models

2: the cable still looks dangerously close to the extractors (aprox 5-6cms at the closest) even with the fiberglass heat wrap will it be too hot for the cable?

ill keep everyone updated if anything happens again but hopefully it will be all smooth sailing now *touch wood*

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"He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it"

wabbit

i'm not sure if the XE and XF had any differences in the firewall/clutch area. i would have assumed that they would be the same, but i was wrong once before

i would have thought that 5-6 cms would have been plenty of clearance, even without exhaust wrap. it sounds like the exhaust is getting too hot to me. i'm wondering if the muffler or cat are clogged

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Move along, please

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phobos0001

i know for a fact the cables themselves are diffrent, the adjuster on the XE is on the bellhousing but the XF is at the firewall...... i might have the XE-XF backwards but that much i do know from a side-by side comparison.

cheers for the help though wabs.

i might tell him to look at the exhause though, its on dual fuel so that might also have somthing to do with the exhaust temps, mabey even the mixture might be too lean, ill tell him to get a tune up. is there a backyard method to checking the condition of the mufflers or cats? or is this an exhaust place job?

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"He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it"

wabbit

well, there you go.
unless there was a gearbox change, i can't see any reason why they would have changed the cable arrangement. the pedals could be different, then.

just reread your first post. i was thinking the car was an XF. since it's an XE, it probably won't have a cat.
on the other hand, if it does have one, the stuff inside may have failed and caused a restriction.

there's no real backyard tests. for what it would take, it would probably be cheaper to just replace the muffler. the front resonator should be fine.
Ford did tend to skimp on pipe sizing and components for these engines and unless there's been a sports system put on, it's probably still restrictive.

unless you can find a really good muffler shop, they will just replace the system or muffler. it's not worth their time to look too closely.

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Nothing to see, here


Move along, please

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