Clutch failing?

[will_will]

Recently been hearing this 'sproinging' sound very intermittently when depressing the clutch:

(Pls ignore my gf complaining about a Porsche )

Will happen about once a drive - if you try and select a gear it'll cause a brutal grinding sound.
Need to back off the clutch in neutral and then try it in again until it will go down without making the sound.

Is this the spring or the drive plate starting to fail?
Thanks in advance -

 

[Uncle Douglas]

is there fluid in your clutch reservoir

 

[rocky]

does the clutch engage and disengage at the end of its travel?

 

[will_will]

Yes to fluid in the reservoir - at max level.

When it makes that sound, it's like it is not engaging at the end of the travel. Thought it might be something hydraulic initially, but nothing obvious I could see. Might be not enough pressure in the system, causing the fork not to move enough or something - but happens very intermittently. Will only happen once randomly every second outing or so, and more often after everything's warmed up

 

[Napalm00]

Maybe a failing fork ?

 

[NPT90]

Maybe a failing fork ?

Yeah, when mine was partially punched through I noticed some grinding. I ended up dropping the transmission to do the clutch only to find I was close to disaster. It happened gradually so I didn’t notice it all at once

 

[will_will]

Thanks @NPT90 - what mileage were you at / how old was your truck at the time?

I'm at ~120K km and 17yrs old, so figure I might be getting near to end of life on the clutch..
Though have seen some folks claim getting 250K kms out of a clutch on a TD5

 

[NPT90]

Thanks @NPT90 - what mileage were you at / how old was your truck at the time?

I'm at ~120K km and 17yrs old, so figure I might be getting near to end of life on the clutch..
Though have seen some folks claim getting 250K kms out of a clutch on a TD5

Great question but I don't know exactly, allegedly it had been replaced within 20K but you know how that goes. At any rate I went ahead and did everything and got my clutch pedal to feel significantly lighter with the new clutch fork insert from britanica restorations.

I also put a slickshift in and I cannot stress how much that improves driving experience across the board. Really makes finding gears and offroading much cleaner.