G'day, my first post to the group (everything else has been a reply).
I think my clutch may be on the way out.
For some time now, the car judders quite vigorously on taking up drive, however smoothly I try to pull away. Not bothered about that, but the engine / gearbox mounts are good, so I think this is a symptom of worn / contaminated clutch.
Anyway, I was hot dogging the car about,, and one of the more agreeable manoeuvres is to yank the wheel right or left and nail the loud pedal in second, to U turn and gather in the back as the speed builds up, sounds and looks impressive but is easy enough when you have the knack of it.
This particular time, though, I'd just full throttled up a steep incline to a T junction, halted to check it was clear, came out intending to skip out a bit at the back but nothing much happened, the car went forward, and I changed up to second, but still no excitement and not very neck-snapping either*. Came off the throttle, experimented with third, seemed to still have drive (I was thinking I might have done the rear diff) and took it steady for a quarter mile.
Thinking it might be clutch, I pulled off in a car park and tried dumping the clutch in first with the handbrake on lightly, but the car hooned forward eagerly enough without much throttle so the clutch was definitely not slipping at that point.
Anyone had this before?
Tentatively, could this be an overheated clutch, and temporary, or a worn clutch and likely to slip more and more?
(* - I checked, and nobody had swapped my car for a 2CV while I was changing CDs.)