clutch free-play adjustment

[cbose]

My 91 legacy wagon (non-turbo) has a cable actuated clutch.
When I got the car, it had terrible clutch shudder when taking off
from a standing start or when reversing. Time for a clutch methinks --
having never driven subarooos before.

I figured I might as well adjust the free play at least before committing to
a big job. After waiting over a month for a CD manual from ebay
(another story) I got the free-play numbers: 3mm - 9mm, but the
dang manual doesn't say where on the release lever to measure that!
Anyway, the cable was set up with 0mm free play by any measure, obviously not good.
So I set it up to measure 10mm at the outer end of the lever. Now
the clutch is MUCH better but still shudders a bit; quite a bit sometimes.

Here is my question (finally!) Am I on the right track here? Is there a magic
free-play number that puts the cam on the pedal in sync with the clutch?
If so, what is that number?? and where should I measure it? Failing that
I'll just experiment, but it would be helpful to hear if anyone else made
significant progress fixing the shudder this way.

Or maybe I DO need a new clutch.

Chris

PS: I did a site search on this. There seems to be some info around on
this problem for newer legacys, with hydraulic clutches, and one
link to a TSB which is broken.

[entirelyturbo]

Subaru clutches shudder for some reason, my Legacy's new clutch will do it REAL bad if you aren't smooth, and even my XT will do it occasionally....

As for pedal adjustment, I don't "measure" anything per se. I simply use this point of reference. Going from the pedal being at the top of its motion, all the way up, start pressing it down with your hand. It should start getting difficult to push in (when you actually start disengaging the clutch) when the clutch pedal is at the same location as the brake pedal, normally the clutch pedal is a little higher than the brake... That's the easiest way to adjust it IMO...

[cbose]

I found the specs for 3-4 mm free travel at the lever and a suggestion
that this is to be measured on the lever at the level where the
clutch cable attaches. So I did this, setting it up pretty close to 4 mm
BIG difference. I get almost no clutch judder/shudder now at all.

This would be the first thing to check on any cable actuated clutch
experiencing shudder symptoms.

It seems like the eccentric cam on the pedal assembly needs to be timed
with the clutch mechanism to work properly. Changing the freeplay will
certainly affect this . . . I was surprised how much.

Chris

[rallysam]

I'm really confused. Why does the freeplay affect the shuddering?