Cast vs forged clutch clevis

[Mark Osterman]

I had taken off my floor boards to chase down an annoying squeak and was surprised to find one side of the clutch adjusting clevis broken off. I don’t remember if this was a reproduction but the original in my “parts department” was different. The broken clevis was a casting and the one I replaced it with was not. Just shows that every so often you need to look over all the exterior moving parts.

By the way I fixed the squeak. When I removed the floor boards I noticed three points of contact where the wood boards were rubbing the steel shiny. A dab of grease on those places fixed the squeak.

[Henry K. Lee]

Mark almost looks like the one which broke was a little short on the attachment, like it was repaired and maybe re-drillled at some time? If they can not float a little bit due to differences in angle moment, they snap. The press ones I have seen bent and eventually break too.

Hope this Helps, All the Best,

Hank

[Allan]

Hank raises a good point. Because the linkage has to cope with some lateral movement as well as up and down, the rod cannot be a neat fit in the clutch pedal, and the clevis needs not to be a neat fit in the eye on the clutch arm. I once rebuilt both ends of this connection to be neat fits, and the mechanism bound up and would not work until I opened up the eyes at each end. The necessary bit of slop is inconsequential in the scheme of things.

I believe that broken part was originally a forging. This one may be a cast replacement.

Allan from down under.

[RajoRacer]

Those are both original parts - forged one is earlier.

[Allan]

Steve, I agree the broken piece is earlier. I do not know when the rolled steel type were introduced. However, I believe this broken one is a cast reproduction, rather than an original forging. A forging will bend considerably before it will fail. This one shows no distortion before the failure, just a clean break. The nut and L piece also look quite new.

Allan from down under.