Re: Re: 1955 11C Traction Avant Commerciale New Members Car

Welcome brave John!

Looking forward to the pictures of this machine.

To your question – “The clutch is stuck in neutral and I would welcome any advice re freeing it up” – do you mean…

– The gearbox is in neutral
– You can’t disengage the clutch
– Therefore can’t disengage the interlock and change gear?

If you want to be able to change gear without disengaging the clutch you can do that by releasing the little bracket (490856) [attachment=0:qvbno883]clutch.pdf[/attachment:qvbno883] that it driven by the clutch release bearing and pulls on the interlock rod. This uses a 5mm allen key and is at the bottom of the eiffel tower on the bell housing. You can adjust it so that it is always pulling on the rod – you’ll need some leverage to get it there – and don’t drop it into the clutch. If it doesn’t move it means that the rod is seized in the gearbox lid. if it does move and you still can’t change gear it means that the interlock balls are stuck. Either way you’ll need to take the lid off and dismantle it – which means getting the radiator out and the cross member off.

If you want to free off the clutch it depends where it is stuck – but if it is stuck in a way that is preventing the release bearing from moving that sounds hard without taking the bellhousing off – of course it might free itself off if you ran the engine when you’re able to do so. But if your release bearing is stuck on the splines, then the bearing might be u/s anyway – both problems caused by water getting in.

Or is the clutch cable stuck, or the operating fork stuck where it goes through the bellhousing? if the latter, WD40 might do it.

All sounds like a lot of fun. If send an email to John Oates, membership@traction-owners.co.uk he can send you a list of members in your area.

Chris