Stuck Clutch.

[John Morrison]

Hi guys, thoughts sought on best ways to free a stuck clutch,

see another thread here.

John.

[Grahamgl]

This method has worked for me on both Triumphs and MG’s.

Put gearbox into neutral, start engine, let it run for half an hour. Turn off engine and let it cool. Start engine and carefully try to engage gear, if not successful repeat the start, run and cool process.

 Graham 

[Ralph Whitaker]

The clutch on my Vitesse regularly sticks when not used for a period of time and I have found that if I start the engine and let the car  heat up to working temperature, then holding the clutch pedal down I give the car several good revs as smartly as possible from idle it comes free. Also it has worked in the past by putting the car in gear, handbrake on, then holding the clutch pedal down, briefly operate the starter and this sometimes shocks the plate free. Literally though just flick the starter as it is the impact of the bendix hitting the flywheel that shocks the plate free.

Ralph

 

[tim hunt]

Believe it or not John the attached simple and mechanically sympathetic procedure has worked successfully for me.

Tim

How to free a seized clutch simply.docx

[Kiwifrog]

Ive always released stuck clutches by jacking up one rear wheel, starting the car in gear with the clutch fully depressed then dabbing on the brakes a couple of times till the clutch comes unstuck

[Andy Moltu]

Warm the car thoroughly. Depress the clutch and try starting the car in gear.

If that doesn’t work, jack up both wheels, start the vehicle in gear, and with the clutch depressed dab the brakes.

[Footstuck]

Same issue when i bought a TR5 as a 20yr old. My mate still owns the car.

I got him to tow me to the top of a fairly steep and long hill and unhooked the tow rope.

I warmed the engine, and switched it off. and when the road was clear;

I selected 2nd gear and depressed clutch and held it down throughout the procedure (until I was successful).

I started engine on the key and set off down the hill with the clutch still depressed.

I accelerated till the engine at 3000-4000rpm and 'HIT THE BRAKES'

The inertia from the engine will overcome the adhesion of the friction material to the flywheel/pressure plate.

Mine took two or three brake checks on one run, which took no more than 30 seconds.

The clutch is designed for these kind of loads.

 

[twostrokekid]

On 6/24/2022 at 9:05 AM, tim hunt said:

Believe it or not John the attached simple and mechanically sympathetic procedure has worked successfully for me.

Tim

How to free a seized clutch simply.docx 9.56 kB · 42 downloads

My 4a clutch regularly seizes during periods of storage in a garage. I've developed a routine of once a month cranking the engine on  the starter motor with the car in gear and the clutch pedal depressed. This simple routine spins the clutch plate to a new position where it then sits for another month. No need to run the engine.

However, last month the clutch was well and truly seized. I tried all the usual tricks of jacking the car up and starting it in gear, then jabbing the brakes with the clutch held down. All to no avail. Then I tried the technique described above; I ran the engine for 30 minutes to warm things through, removed the plugs, then wedged the clutch and brake pedals down with suitable lengths of timber wedged against the seat runners (a great wife substitute and it doesn'tcomplain!). By rocking the crankshaft pulley nut with a socket on a long socket wrench the clutch sprung free after about 20 good tugs. A very gentle way to free the clutch.

[tim hunt]

I am very glad this 'hack' worked for you. I came up with the technique years ago by dint of a bit of lateral thinking and strangely have never seen it promulgated anywhere.

Tim

[twostrokekid]

Tim, many thanks! You're lateral thinking saved me a whole heap of fiddling about with the risk of potential damage and, possibly yet again, a gearbox removal!

[My Dads Car]

Add me to the list of stuck clutches... Transmission with new clutch was mated to engine in late-May. The summer has been hot, rainy, and very humid where I live for most of the past 2+ months. The engine, finally... after two failed attempts, started this past Friday and ran for 20+ minutes at 2,200 rpm to break-in camshaft.

I waited until Saturday morning to try and put car in gear: no luck....

I will try the warmup-cooldown-restart method on Sunday morning as outlined by Grahamgl above, then try Ralph Whitaker's method if needed. I am very reluctant towards  putting the rear up on axel stands.... I have great stands but they sit a bit high at even the lowest setting, the geometry of the car with a potential big vibration gives me a bad mental image of the car sliding off the stands

If there are any other suggestions please let me know. I know there's another trick involving revving the engine and slamming on the brakes. While I don't have easy access to an empty parking lot I might be able to push the car to the end of the driveway, get it on a fairly flat stretch of road that shouldn't be very busy at 7:00 am on a hot Sunday morning and try this method, as a last resort.

Thanks in advance,

Jamie

[Z320]

Hi Jamie,

sad to hear this, I have a question:

are you sure the master / slave is fully bleeded and works proper?

To check this measure the way of travel of the slave push rod while your Dad steps on the pedal.

With the standard 0.75“ master an 1“ slave it must be about 15-16 mm, 10 mm should be fine.

Ciao, Marco

Edited August 9 by Z320

[My Dads Car]

7 hours ago, Z320 said:

Hi Jamie,

sad to hear this, I have a question:

are you sure the master / slave is fully bleeded and works proper?

To check this measure the way of travel of the slave push rod while your Dad steps on the pedal.

With the standard 0.75“ master an 1“ slave it must be about 15-16 mm, 10 mm should be fine.

Ciao, Marco

Hi Marco- I made this short video to demonstrate pushrod travel. The hanging piece of paper is 10mm from the lever. I do believe the system was properly bled. 

 

Edited August 9 by My Dads Car

[stuart]

4 minutes ago, My Dads Car said:

Hi Marco- I made this short video to demonstrate pushrod travel. The hanging piece of paper is 10mm from the lever. I do believe the system was properly bled. 

 

 

That’s plenty of travel to disengage I would say, my usual method to free stick clutch is get engine really warm so heat soaks right through and then switch off select 2nd gear and with foot down on clutch and brakes on hard then try to start engine, failing that a rolling start in gear and up the road dipping the clutch and jumping on the brakes often works too but make sure everything is nice and hot always. Once it frees then give it a good slipping for a while to clean up flywheel face and clutch cover 

Stuart

[Z320]

Looks good

[My Dads Car]

On 8/9/2026 at 9:45 AM, stuart said:

That’s plenty of travel to disengage I would say, my usual method to free stick clutch is get engine really warm so heat soaks right through and then switch off select 2nd gear and with foot down on clutch and brakes on hard then try to start engine, failing that a rolling start in gear and up the road dipping the clutch and jumping on the brakes often works too but make sure everything is nice and hot always. Once it frees then give it a good slipping for a while to clean up flywheel face and clutch cover 

Stuart

Thanks, Stuart. I tried this with no success. In fact, when I tried restarting the engine in second gear with clutch down and brakes on hard the engine started as if nothing was wrong - but I was unable to disengage from second gear unless I turned off the engine.  
 

I tried a limited rolling start in third gear to no avail…. 
 

Current status is I have extreme resistance from the gearshift lever when I try to shift into all forward gears but can just begin to “grind” the gears when trying to engage reverse. Any further suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks- Jamie 

[RobH]

33 minutes ago, My Dads Car said:

I tried restarting the engine in second gear with clutch down and brakes on hard the engine started as if nothing was wrong

The clutch can't be stuck then.  If it was, the engine would not start, or the car would just jump forward.

This sounds more like a gearbox problem or perhaps things didn't go back together properly when the transmission was fitted to the car ?    

[My Dads Car]

49 minutes ago, RobH said:

The clutch can't be stuck then.  If it was, the engine would not start, or the car would just jump forward.

This sounds more like a gearbox problem or perhaps things didn't go back together properly when the transmission was fitted to the car ?    

Hi, Rob. The car does jump forward when I try to start with a gear already engaged and the clutch in normal driving position.

Any idea why it starts in second as described above yet I am unable to move it out of second unless I shut the engine down? Any diagnostic checks I can do before I pull the transmission to check installation?

Jamie

Edited August 11 by My Dads Car

[RobH]

6 minutes ago, My Dads Car said:

The car does jump forward when I try to start with a gear already engaged and the clutch in normal driving position.

If it does that  but will start and run with a gear already engaged and the clutch pedal down, the clutch must be working OK. 

With the car in gear and the brakes on, the internals of the gearbox should be stationary so there should be nothing to prevent disengagement with the engine running .  The only thing I can think of is that there is some kind of friction which is not enough to stall the engine but which is putting a torque on the gearbox input shaft and loading the gears even though they do not turn.   

One possibility is that the cutch plate is the wrong way round and so continuing to drag on something - maybe the clutch cover ( which is rotating with the engine ) even though the plate is clear of the flywheel.  Unfortunately I don't believe there is a diagnostic test for that. 

[Z320]

IMO there is not enough space to the 4 bolts to give the friction plate free, if it is fitted the wrong side to the flywheel….?

I can test this later today, if wanted.

Anyway the way of travel of the posh rod looks good I would continue to bleed the clutch.

Is the slave cylinder installed with the bleeding nipple „up“?

Is the slave piston fully pushed in?

Ciao, Marco

Edited August 12 by Z320

[My Dads Car]

4 hours ago, Z320 said:

IMO there is not enough space to the 4 bolts to give the friction plate free, if it is fitted the wrong side to the flywheel….?

I can test this later today, if wanted.

Anyway the way of travel of the posh rod looks good I would continue to bleed the clutch.

Is the slave cylinder installed with the bleeding nipple „up“?

Is the slave piston fully pushed in?

Ciao, Marco

Hi, Marco.

Yes, please do the test you mention. I was very conscious of, and very careful of, attaching the flywheel and clutch components in the proper direction when I did this work, but that doesn't mean I still could have gotten something wrong.

The clutch pedal does feel a bit "mushy" and lacking the pop I recall feeling- I will bleed it again. 

Yes, the bleeding nipple is up.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "Is the slave piston fully pushed in?" When I was using AI to diagnose this problem initially there was mention of pushing the slave piston in with the pushrod during bleeding but never recalled performing this move in the past so I ignored it... Perhaps that's where my problem lies?

Thanks- Jamie

[stuart]

31 minutes ago, My Dads Car said:

Hi, Marco.

Yes, please do the test you mention. I was very conscious of, and very careful of, attaching the flywheel and clutch components in the proper direction when I did this work, but that doesn't mean I still could have gotten something wrong.

The clutch pedal does feel a bit "mushy" and lacking the pop I recall feeling- I will bleed it again. 

Yes, the bleeding nipple is up.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "Is the slave piston fully pushed in?" When I was using AI to diagnose this problem initially there was mention of pushing the slave piston in with the pushrod during bleeding but never recalled performing this move in the past so I ignored it... Perhaps that's where my problem lies?

Thanks- Jamie

You do meed the pushrod all the way home in the slave cylinder when bleeding or your always going to have a small air gap there.

FWIW I have come across a clutch plate installed the wrong way round but with the car still driveable, It was a 3a and although the clutch engaged almost on the floor with some suspicious noises it was driveable.

Stuart. 

[Z320]

Engine out, shift in gear #2, step on brake and clutch, start die engine.

Now the engine is running on idle.

With the clutch pedal still pressed, do you feel the car wants to move? Do you gear any sliding noise?

Silghtly let the pedal come, how fast does the car wants to move?

More after Feierabend.

[Z320]

Hi Jamie,

from the flywheel surface down to the heads of the screws there is about 9 mm space

The gearbox side ("wrong side") of the friction plate is about 14 mm high on 3 old plates in my workshop.

Fitted the wrong side around the springs touch the heads and a 5 mm gap remaind.

With the pedal down to the floor the clutch possibly disconnects but from the springs I expect noticable noises on the screw's heards.

BTW, I never read this on this forum,

the toothed sleeve is turned coned to the gearbox side to get the gb shaft "easy" in.

  

While the flywheel side is not prepared this way

IMO it is not possibe to fit the friction plate the wrong side to the flywheel, but there are wizards out there.

Ciao, Marco

 

[Z320]

What Stuart and I point on about the clutch slave (piston full in for bleeding)

I have not seen explained in detail at any TR forum, while it is IMO specilly for TR6 very interesting.

They have the most problems with the clutch (because of further construction problems too).

On this lovely slave master (new/old) all air is easy to bleed out on top!

Sadly it is from a Mazda MX5 (Miata) and not from a TR 😂

The TR clutch master is 1" in diameter and the drilling for the nipples go in angular and end the half way to the center, 1/2" in distance.

The drilling for the bleeding nipple does NOT end on the top!

All space above the red line (slightly angled), 1/4" high, can not be bleeded with the slave installed in the bracket.

With the piston "in any position" (TR6, "self adjstabel clutch") more air remains in the slave,

with the pistion fully in (arrow)via the adjustable push rod less air remains in the slave.

Don't forget to adjust a free play of 0.1" after bleeding.

Ciao, Marco

Edited August 12 by Z320