clutch quadrant swap?

[RUNINAGT]

I know there is a thread some where. I am going to ATTEMPT to swap the OE quadrant and with a Ford Racing Alum one. I have been having an ongoing situation with the release bearing going out, ie squeaking that I can make stop or get louder by pressing the clutch cable to different points.

Any how a friend told me he ran into the same problem on another fox and found that the cable was the issue. Apparently it was ever so slightly stretched causing the bearing to make slight contact?? Well I did like he said and replaced the cable with an aftermarket one from our local parts house. Well the squeaking stopped as soon as it was hooked up. That was good, but my pedal got hard to press. So after driving I put in another cable thinking the 1st replacement was bad?? It felt a little better but still was very hard. Enough to make it not fun to drive. So as I started to research a bit more, I though I read somewhere that most the time, the quadrant is what causes the issue, I guess by getting out of adjustment, not the cable. Well my OE cable is loooonng gone, so I ordered this Ford Racing one with the alumin quadrant.

I'm going to attempt the install today after lunch here at work. We have lifts So my question is. Is there a thread that walks you through this on the do's and dont's on this job??

 

[Jason 302]

When I did mine, I found it was much more comfortable if I took the front seat out

 

[RUNINAGT]

AND the other issue Mine come with a power seat and the motor is locked in place all the way back!! So I can not gain access to the rear bolts to remove it...

 

[Riverart]

Thanks for posting this. My throwout bearing is making the same noise. I might look into swapping out the quadrant and cable as well.

 

[RUNINAGT]

now has been postponed to doing it tomorrow.

 

[Mintsick]

You can certainly replace it with the seat in place, I did it this way. It was awkward figuring out how to get my 6'-1" frame wrangled into a good position but once you figure it out you should be OK. The lift will help if you are swapping the cable again, otherwise you won't need it.

 

[RUNINAGT]

Yea swapping cable as well. I hope this makes the pedal easier to push. Again it got hard after putting in the aftermarket cable from the original one. I wish I still had the old one to reinstall to see for sure if my pedal goes back to normal.

 

[foxbodymike87]

Yea swapping cable as well. I hope this makes the pedal easier to push. Again it got hard after putting in the aftermarket cable from the original one. I wish I still had the old one to reinstall to see for sure if my pedal goes back to normal.

makes it harder.. i have stock cable with aftermarket quadrant. and It's harder than a girls tits in a snowstorm.

 

[rangerboy101]

^That's pretty hard

 

[foxbodymike87]

^That's pretty hard

You have no idea.

 

[Mintsick]

lol, do you know what brand of aftermarket cable you have? I used the Maximum Motorsports kit that came with a new Ford cable and firewall adjuster/quadrant and I don't feel like the clutch is very hard personally (my daily driver is a hyd. clutch which feels like playing a video game compared to this).

 

[RUNINAGT]

OK here's my update. Replaced the plastic quadrant with the Ford racing alum one with a Ford racing cable. IT IS MUCH BETTER!!!!! MUCH MUCH BETTER.!!!

I don't know if there is a sticky on how to do this job or not, but there should be.

1st I pulled the clips from the rods holding the quadrant in place after simply unhooking the cable from it.
~then pried it off some with a flat head screw driver enough to get it loose. Reached up there and pulled it out of plpace and then wiggled it out from under the dash, a large spring come out with it.
~ then went back in for the paw. That guy did not want to come out. I could get it to move off the shaft about 1/4" but there still was a piece at the other side that was not allowing it to come off the shaft. I also noticed that there was a welded brace/bracket in place that may need to get bent to get it off the shaft completely. I read this some where on here that you may need to bemd that brace pending on how your car was built on certain years???
~ anyway I could not get the freaking paw off. I then remembered reading on here once again on a google search that one guy took the cable out of the fire wall and could see the paw pretty clearly and used a big screw driver to break it into 3 pcs. So I go back out into the shop, remove the cable from the firewall, look through the hole and low and behold there's that flippin paw. I called another guy over and told him to break it off the shaft while I held onto the clutch pedal for leverage. He used a large pry bar and snapped it off into 2 pcs. I then wiggled what was left of the paw out from under the dash. I have yet to still find the other pc of plastic.
~ next I put a little lithium white grease in the holes of the new quadrant to make sure it would go on easily. It slid right into place, no problems. I had to fiddle with the clutch pedal just a tad to get the quadrant to go over the shaft the paw was on, but it still was pretty easy.
~ next I raised the car and removed the old cable.
~lowered car and 1st put the cable in the right route, bolted it to the strut tower, then to the firewall.
~ got back in car, back on my back. Inserted the cable in the quadrant while someone else lifted the car to place it in the fork part. He snugged it just a tad so the cable would not slide back off the quadrant. I stayed in the car to hold the cable in place, otherwise it would slide off.
~ from there we kept adjusting the cable at the transmission until the pedal was not loose and the squeaking noise from my release bearing went away.
~The 1st night (yesterday) I drove it home I had too much slack in the pedal to the point it would vibrate the pedal while driving. Drove me nuts. Today we made the very simple adjustment to tighten it all up.


Guys I should of done this a long time ago. This bearing thing has been a pain in my a..

The other note that should be taken is, that yes the cable brand does matter. I went through 2 ATP brand cables and they both made my pedal extremely hard. My foot would hurt sometimes from being in traffic. Not trying to sound like a wus. I stated before that my oe cable did not give me a hard pedal. As soon as the aftermarket one was installed my pedal got hard.

I also read somewhere that a lot of the times the main issue comes from the quadrant, not the other items. ie; release bearing or cable. I still feel like I may need to replace the bearing at some point due to the damage has already been done, but as long as I can make a simple adjustment to quiet it up. Then it stays. Don't feel like pulling the tranny again.

Hope this helps anyone else that is going to do this job. Thanks to all that offered their advise.

 

[Mintsick]

That's good to hear! Nice write up too BTW, I remember getting that pawl off was pain, I somehow managed to get mine off in 1 piece without breaking or bending anything else.

 

[RUNINAGT]

Forgot to mention. I did not remove the driver seat to do this either. Was not the easiest to get myself in the position to do the work, but never the less I got it. :}