I’ve looked at archives and everybody says the pedal box has to come out to replace the spring. Has anybody ever managed to replace the spring with the pedal box in place? I don’t think it’s possible to do so but I have to ask.
I think it’s possible but haven’t tried. I imagine Time spent on your back in the footwell and a lot of coursing. 
I didn’t find it that big a deal to just pull the pedal box vs trying to do the spring replacement in situ.
The fluid had to be sucked out of the reservoirs and all those bits removed:
Then it was just wrenching to undo all the lines to the masters. With those off the whole thing lifts out with a 45° twist to get the pedals through the opening.
For reassembly I used hitch pins instead of cotters so there is a better chance I could do it from below next time.
One thing that made removal easier was using an impact wrench on those 5 nuts in the footwell – the time spent doing the dashboard limbo was just a few seconds.
Hi John,
I was able to replace the clutch spring without removing the pedal box. It can be done but I did need an assistant (my lovely wife) to push the pin back in as I supported the pedals from the inside. The hard part was getting on my back and laying under there. Top down, seat out and padding the floor.
Cheers,
LLynn
These springs break quite readily. I suspect that half of all clutch return springs are broken, and nobody actually notices.
On the Series I box (II’s may differ, I have no idea) the spring is bent and stressed on its very end due to the curve in the casting. My educated guess is that this puts even more stress on an already shaky design, manufacture and metallurgy. I ground away some of the aluminum. I’ll be surprised if I don’t need to take the thing out again once I try to actually get the car running. There were more adjustments than a rental tuxedo.
Thanks to everybody for the input and advice.
Terry: I certainly didn’t notice when I had the opportunity while the car was apart. I’ve no idea if just the weight on the pedal is sufficient to cause an problem with the master. I know it’s not enough to move the slave.
Ole: The hitch pin suggestion is perfect. And thanks for the pictures.
LLynn: I’m not as flexible as I used to be, so. . . .
I think I’ll wait until I have an excuse to remove the pedal box. Looking in the archives again I found that some folks have rigged a bungee that performed the same function as the spring. I’ll try that as an interim step and post some pictures if it works.
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Hi John, pictures wasn’t by me. Due credit goes to: Geo !
Lynn,
I believe you have an S3. Do you have a picture of the clutch and brake pedals that you can share.
The reason is that I have somewhere between 1/2" and 1" between them and it can sometimes cause me to strike the brake pedal when changing gears. Not a biggie, since I only grace it, but with my XK8 third brake light with strobe module I suspect that traffic behind me get a bit thrown off by the strobing.
Cheers … Ole
Whoops, you are right, my thanks to Geo.
Hi Ole,
As you can see, for some reason my pedals have adequate spacing on my S3, not the same story with my '68 however and I had to modify the brake pedal by grinding off the teat and angle it slightly.
Cheers,
LLynn
Jerry used to swear by a bungee cord after a return spring breaks, at least until it’s actually necessary to remove the box. I think I’m on spring 4 after 17 years. The current one has been in the longest yet, fingers crossed.
I don’t think they are necessary. The only issue is to keep the release bearing off the clutch, and that is looked after by the springs in and outside of the slave cylinder(s). The pushrod attached to the clutch pedal is retained in the master cylinder and limits rearward movement of the pedal, unlike the brake setup, so it won’t flop around when the spring is broken.
[quote=“inlinesix, post:13, topic:359180”]
don’t think they are necessary. [/quote]
You are probably right Terry. But on the other hand Jaguar put that spring there for some reason and I figure it couldn’t hurt. So having time on my hands I took a length of black elastic I picked up in the sewing supply section of a store and fabricated a simple bracket. The elastic is strong enough to pull the pedal back but stretchy enough to not add any noticeable effort to the clutch
Hi L.Lynn,
thanks for the picture.
As you can see in the attached picture, I have just about 1" between the clutch and brake pedal and well over 2.5" between the brake and accelerator. Your clutch & brake pedals seem to “spread” and have what looks like an equal spacing of a good 2". This tells me that when performing the auto to manual conversion, it is not enough to just ad one pedal. One have to source both a new (used) clutch pedal as well as a brake pedal. In the picture you can see my original brake pedal from the auto set up to the left, and the non original brake pedal to the right.
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You can ‘adjust’ the pedal spacing by heating the metal and bashing with a suitably large hammer. That’s what I did with mine when I ditched the auto box.
Hi Ole,
The other thing I had to do was to remove the foot rest on the left, couldn’t work the clutch with it in place.
Cheers,
LLynn
Oh wow, that’s interesting. Yes the pedals should spread. My S1 has a pronounced bend in the brake arm. Bending it could possibly work but it would raise the pad, and would likely require a modified pad to bring it back down to the correct height. I’m wondering how this switch was done. Wouldn’t the pivoting collar on the brake pedal arm have extended across the pinion in the box or was there a spacer that could just be removed to add the clutch pedal in?
You could bend it, or you could fabricate a new offset brake pedal pad, but IMO the easiest and best solution would be to source a new bent brake arm.
That’s probably the quickest fix for a broken clutch pedal spring. 