clutch pedal spring

[craggy]

hi, i'll try to explain this as best i can. my 52 mondeo tdci had to have the flywheel , clutch and starter motor replaced in september, today i got in the car and the clutch pedal went straight to the floor!, i rang the garage that fixed it , and straight away he said it will be your clutch release bearing, i said how can you assume that without even looking at the car, and why had you not replaced it at the time. so alarm bells started ringing, so i had a quick look through the haynes manual and it states that the clutch pedal spring could cause this, i took off the panel above the pedals to have a look at it it, and it is not there, and ive looked everywhere, footwell , etc, now either the haynes manual is wrong or my clutch pedal did not have a spring on, surely it should have a spring on the pedal, the pedal moves up and down freely, its not jammed, sooo what i would like to ask is : does the mondeo actually have a clutch spring pedal, and is it possible to drive the car without one, i can honestly say that the spring broken or otherwise is no where to be seen, im really confused on this, any advice would help, as i don't want to be ripped off again. many thanks craig

[flying clutchman]

Yor manual is leading you astray. If you have lost pressure then either tour slave oe your master cylinder is faulty. Normally if it's the slave then you'll see fluid on the underneath of the gearbox. (not always though). You're right though, if they're changing clutch, DMF and starter you'd think they'd change the cylinderContaining the bearin) as well. If you need a new slave it's gearbox out again I'm afraid.

[craggy]

hi, thanks for the reply, when i rang the garage up about this he stated that i was given the option to have the release bearing changed , which i know was an outright lie., and him saying this led me to believe it haden't been changed, so to cut to the chase , told them that if it is this , (which it is) i won't pay for it, as any decent garage would replace the bearing at the same time, and if you are planning on charging , forget it , as i would take the car to another garage and pay them to strip it down and check everything, because by now i was having doubts that they had replaced the clutch and flywheel, so now they have decided they did fit a release bearing and it was faulty, so no charge.

the reason i was asking about the clutch pedal spring, was, it is my feeling that because the spring is not there, then the clutch pedal was working on hydraulics alone and would eventually create enough pressure to pop the pipe out of the bearing, i have asked around and have been told this is possible, my theory is that they did not replace the flywheel and clutch but charged me for it, took the spring off the pedal knowing what effect it would have on the clucth release bearing and knowing i would take it back there because they had worked on it and try to charge me more to do the release bearing, my gut instinct tells me im right on this, and i will keep you informed on this when i get the car back, anything not correct with the car, i wll be taking it straight to another garage to strip down, and then it will be court and trading standards involved, i willl go all the way on this matter, as i am tired off garages thinking they can get away with ripping people off, from past experience i document and photo everything before hand, they have got the chance to make this right, if they don't, well !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[flying clutchman]

I think you may be getting a bit paranoid now! The issue of the spring is a red herring, the clutch will work perfctly well without it. lots of cars which share a similar design of clutch to mondeos do not have a spring fitted at all. Even the master cylinders do not have internal springs in most cases any more. The spring exerted by the clutch pressure plate is a cosiderable force, and once the internals of the cylinder return to rest pressure is completely released. The return spring is purely aimed at keeping uniform pedal height. Your assessment of your garages competence is probably right but as long as they fix it for you I doubt that darker forces are at work!