Freeing the Hudson Clutch

Unknown

My poor ole '26 Coupe been sitting inactive for most of the last five

years. There are a series of reasons for this, but in any case it has often

been a year or so without driving. When this happens, the clutch can be very

difficult to free off.

I am familiar with this problem from many years experience with British

motorcycles. It has become part of the starting drill -- each morning, pull

in the hand clutch and take a swing on the kickstarter. The plates offer a

little resistance to the leg and then give in to doing their work.

I have been adapting that procedure to the Super Sixes. First, get the

car running and warm with the gearbox in neutral. After it is warm enough to

want to start readily, I would kill the motor, select first or reverse

(depending on which direction had more room), set the hand throttle up a bit,

depress the clutch pedal to the floor, hit the starter pedal to start the

motor and then stomp the brake HARD with my size 14.

The poor ole girl gives a shudder and a shake, but the clutch does free.

I HATE doing it this way! I imagine all sorts of mayhem both from the abused

mechanical bits and from anything I might hit should my boot not find the

brake pedal in time. There has got to be a better way!

Last night I was preparing the Coupe for it's new motor and to do that it

had to be ferried from it's storage garage about two miles to the back of the

shop where the transplant is to take place. That means the clutch had to be

freed once again after sitting more than a year.

The back axle of the car was already up on jackstands so I could get out

and get under to work on a fuel feed problem so it seemed a good idea to run

the car in gear up in the air and just slowly "clamp" down on the brakes.

Once again I selected first to aim toward wide open spaces should something

go amiss and went ahead and fired up the motor. Starting the car in gear with

the wheels flailing away proved no trauma at all. So far, so good.

Next, the clutch was depressed, then eeeeassse on the brake . . . a bit

more hand throttle to keep the motor from stalling and . . . the clutch freed

with a minor jerk! Hey, that's not too bad! I'm gonna hafta remember that

trick for the next time the clutch wants to play hardball with me. It's a

little extra work, but seems easier on the mechanicals and therefore easier

on me.







Paul O'Neil, Hudson29@aol.com

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