Clutch Drag

[UHT405]

Peter,

The clutch should engage and disrengage roughly half way up the travel of the pedal. When you say it engages at the end of travel, is that with the pedal near fully up or near fully depressed? If the former, then it could simply be that your clutch mechanism - which is indeed mechanical as you say - is out of adjustment and forcing the clutch pressure plate to operate too soon in the pedal travel. When you operate the clutch, the linkage applies a force to the centre of the clutch pressure plate spring via the release bearing, and that force is reacted through the flywheel and crankshaft to the block via the crankshaft thrust washers. If too excessive force is applied, then the thrust bearing can load up heavily and/or the crank is forced heavily on to the thrust washers in the block - either adds a small load to the engine which at idle could cause a small drop in revs.

I'd suggest checking the clutch adjustment as a first step....

regards

Martin