Post Picture From a Factory Service Manual

Duggie said
Hey Rusty, the little woman and I took the Dart down the Pacific Coast Highways (1 and 101), from Tacoma to LA over the last couple weeks. I didn't want to advertise we were away. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I'm not paranoid enough, you know?

I had cutch, or better stated - transmission disengagement issues after the first 500 miles on the road. (New clutch and TO Brg) Finally stopped in Santa Rosa, CA where a shop welded a 1/2" tube to the adjustment rod the threaded rod goes into to increase the ability to adjust the pedal height. Thought it was good until about half way to Santa Cruz, CA. Wouldn't shift into 1st or reverse at a full stop (again) so we left it with a shop in Santa Cruz and took a rental to LA for a wedding. The mechanic says I probably nicked the pilot bushing or bent a pressure plate ear with the transmission input shaft on install, causing the input shaft to not completely disengage when pressing the clutch.

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Pick up the car coming back north and it shifts great leaving the shop. Mechanic says he fussed with the linkage, and didn't need to pull the transmission. A few hundred miles north of the shop, the throw out bearing starts to make a "ticky" sound with my foot off the clutch. The sound goes away with light pressure on the clutch pedal and it's hard to get into 1st and reverse after 5 -6 hours of driving the switchbacks along the coast. This morning the throw out bearing howls when the clutch is fully depressed (cold) and is shifting stiff into 1st and reverse, getting progressively worse as the miles are piled on. I'm ready to throw this clutch assembly in the trash and start over!

If I haven't put you to sleep yet, I do have a couple questions;

Why does the clutch linkage rod holes have a "D" shape for a round pin? Each end of the rod going through the firewall and the end of the throw out adjustment rod that attaches to the Z Bar is D shaped. Lots of slop inside each D opening for the round pin to rattle around in.

And my throw out adjustment rod is touching the exhaust pipe. How much of a gap do you have between the two?

This car started out as an automatic and someone converted it to a 4 spd. Do you know if there are different Z Bars?

I initially thought finding a 4 spd was going to be so much easier than working on a push button auto. I'm choking on that thought just a little...

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I honestly do not know why on the D shaped holes, but they are all like that and all of the new replacements are like that. It doesn't matter from a functional standpoint, because all of the slop is adjusted out anyway. But that's a question I do not know the answer to. If I had to "GUESS" I would say the design is to keep and binding from occurring.

As far as my exhaust, it does not touch any linkage at all. As far as I know, it's the original exhaust. The muffler has a Chrysler part number and pentastar and it and the pipe appear to have the same age looking rust.

The only difference in Z bars I am aware of would be maybe Slant Six to V8 and then for the different year models. I am not sure which is different.......I do apologize. I am useless as tits on a boar hog on this one.

THe more I drive mine though, the more I may well enough alone. I really don't know. I may try the later A body rod and shorten it so it is about one inch longer than the original rod. That would not be so much that I could not adjust it right back to where it is, if I had problems. I still have not gotten one yet. Everybody evidently thinks they're made of gold. I can get the whole kit with everything in it for about 45 dollars. But the cheapest I've found "just" the rod is like 25 and I'm not paying that when I can put some more with it and just get the whole kit.