Clutch Action

On the fury, the clutch cable comes out of the footwell, turns through 180deg & goes into the bell housing about 5in from the footwell exit. This, I think is not a good thing, the clutch has always been stiff, with a certain amount of "stiction" & now the clutch pedal clicks when it's travelling. It started with one click each way & is now up to four, so I'm thinking the cable is fraying.

I'm guessing a lot of the problem is because the cable has to turn 180 deg in such a short length. I used to have the longest possible Ford cable running in a wide(ish) arc round the engine bay, but it wasn't much better.

So what to do?
My plan is to cut the outer cable outer off & run the cable inner forward from the pedal, round a pulley in the engine bay & back to the bell housing. It'll reduce the friction to almost zero, but will it work?

One problem I identified was adjustment (currently the adjustment is on the cable outer - which won't be there) so I've come up with a natty way of using a kart track rod to adjust the pulley position. The next problem could be vibration up through the pedal (the cable will be trying to pull the engine forward on its mounts), but mostly the vibration is side to side, so that should be cancelled out.

To begin I bought some alloy angle & a track rod for a Kart (to give the adjustment). I also rummaged through an old spares box & found a flying control pulley & a high quality bolt to attach it with.

Next job was to cut the cable outer from an old clutch cable I'd found in the garage roof.

Not a quick or pleasant job by any means, but by the by it was reduced to a tangle of twisted metal.

Then in to the making side of things, I drilled & cut the box section so the pulley fits into it & one of the track rod ends attaches to one end. It needs prettying up a bit, but I'm just testing the principle at the moment.

So at the moment the linkage looks like this.



 

Clutch Works

Well, I thought it would be ok, but wasn't entirely convinced. However, today I mocked up the new clutch linkage & can report that it does indeed work as planned. As you can almost see from the pics, various lumps of metal are g-clamped tot he chassis, but, I started the engine & drove it in & out of the garage & it felt just like a clutch, though the cable is rubbing a little & that need sorting out but it's no big deal. I can now move on to the next stage.

Starter Button

Ever since I started building the Fury it was my intention that there shouls be a little bit od Hot Rod & a little but of aeroplane in it. Regular readers will know that there are several bits of aeroplane used in the car - not there to be flash or ornamental, just when I had something that was of genuine use. One thing it hadn't had was a thing I'd noticed on Ebay from time to time but never had spare money for.

Well, I decided I'd waited long enough & bought one. It's a starter button to a standard Air Ministry pattern as used in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters & probably every other plane of that vintage.

It's a shrouded button with a sprung - lift up flap, so you don't hit the starter by accident (I had hit the old starter button unintentionally once or twice, it certainly makes you jump!).

Today I had a day off work as I'd built up too many hours & one of my jobs was to get this fitted.

The starter panel came out of the car easier than I was expecting & the fuel pump stitch & alarm light came off easy enough as did the old start stitch - I say "old" but it's probably at least 50 years younger than the "new" one - then it was just a case of opening out the hole, drilling four small bolt holes & re-assembling - simple.

Now doesn't that look good?

And in answer to the inevitable question - no I'm NOT going to fit an altimeter - that would just be silly.