UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi people, im new as you can see
My car is a Polo GLX 1.6 1996
Recentley i was driving home and was having trouble changing gears. It felt as though i needed to push the clutch pedal in more(but i couldnt). Anyway i was stuck in 3rd gear and come to a set of traffic lights, i couldnt change gear (stuck in 3rd) so i held the clutch down until the lights changed and managed to get going again untill i came to another set of lights where i again put the clutch in but this time the pedal went straight down and maybe the cable snapped???
Also when i was sitting at the lights with the clutch right the way in and in 3rd gear, the car was slightly pulling away!
Maybe the clutch cable needed adjusting, anway it has snapped now i presume.
So does anyone reckon i need a new gearbox or is it just a new cable i need???

Thanks for any help

John

edit: It may be a stupid question, im not mechanically minded like some. But i thought i might get at least one reply

could be a snapped cable or the pedal box may have broken.

Hmm similar fing hapend 2 me i had 2 drive home without a clutch because my cable snaped. i got a new one then it snaped agen it turned out this was because my pedal box was cracked so i rang vw but it was like 80 for a new one so i jus welded it and its been fine since so check ur cable but also check the pedal box as it may be the same thing! good luk newayz

Could be either one, usually the cable putting strain on the box forces the linkage to break at the welds. A new box is around £40, its the labour at garages that cost alot. I'm getting mine fixed before it breaks for the 3rd time. Jarno menioned the cable is self-adjusting so that isn't the problem.

Remember if it is the box, get an extra piece of metal welded on to strengthen the part.

Thanks for the replys.
Just had a look and yep, it is the pedal box
I'm in the process of taking the broken one off(with the help of my old man) and its bloody hard work!!!
Have to take the steering column off aswell just to get to it!
Anyway almost there, should have the new one in tomorrow.

you know you can hold the two pieces with a g-clamp or mole grips, drill a hole through the two parts and bolt it?

Mine's been like that since May. At some point it may break again, at which point I will simply put another bolt in.

dragon_green wrote:you know you can hold the two pieces with a g-clamp or mole grips, drill a hole through the two parts and bolt it?

Mine's been like that since May. At some point it may break again, at which point I will simply put another bolt in.

hmmmmm. Thanks for the advice but i dont think that would work for mine as it has broken off where there isnt a weld or anything, there would be nothing i could bolt it to.

that's strange. The clutch pedal is mounted on a bracket piece which is welded to the main pedal box, this is where mine went.

that's strange. The clutch pedal is mounted on a bracket piece which is welded to the main pedal box, this is where mine went. It was a fiddly job.

Good luck, anyway!

Im gonna sort mine out next week. The best thing to do before you put a new one in is to weld another metal piece to strengthen it along with extra welding where there already is. Hopefully strengthening this piece would stop it from buckling/twisting/breaking etc

it just pulls the welds clean off, on mine the constituent parts are fine.