Corsa C, clutch pedal snapped

Wig

Hoping someone knows what this is,

It was driving fine, I parked it for 2 hours then got in and rolled down hill trying to push in the clutch pedal, I met with some resistance, wanting to select a gear I pushed harder, then a snap and then the pedal went down but still no gear selection possible.

Parked car again had a look underneath at the foot pedals, the metal pedal holds inside it a white plastic clip, and inside that, the cable for the clutch.

The metal on the pedal surrounding the white plastic has split open allowing the white plastic clip to slide around when the pedal is pressed down, hence, no clutch action.

The clutch must have seized or something to the extent that the excess pressure caused the pedal casing to snap

I will need a new pedal (scrap yard)

But what is the underlying cause and fix?

EDIT: Turns out it is a known problem and Vauxhall have modified the pedal !! I would have though this was suitably dangerous to warrant a recall!!!

Anyway, so I'm thinking maybe find one in the scrap yard with the modified pedal, anyone know what year the new pedal design was fitted as standard from new?

Anyone know how difficult it will be to change the pedal? Anypitfalls I should be aware of?

2nd EDIT:
Further reading and the clutch pedal change is going to remove the whole steering column!

• 1 guy quoted from Vauxall 7 years ago, as £40 for the pedal and £240 for labour
• Another guy got his done for 3 hours labour from an independant
• And this guy :

  Takes me about 1 hour to replace the whole clutch pedal Plenty of practice when working for Royal Mail as a mechanic haha. No need to remove thesteering coloum. Just the sender reciever for the power steering and the plastics surrounding the coloum. Then theres 5 30mm nuts and a couple of other bits. Bit of persuasion and confidence and you will be able to do it

  Which is very good news.
• And another guy fixed it with a bodge, made a bracket to fit over the pedal and presumably bolted into place. Hmmm

Edit 3

I have now removed the clutch pedal. This is how I did it.

• Remove driver seat
• I already have my carpets and all plastic trim removed from below the steering wheel
• Disconnect battery
• Disconnect only the 2 wiring clips from the EPS CU from the side nearest the gear stick (you can leave the other wires in place on the side nearest the drivers door)
• Remove EPS CU
• Remove the Intermediate shaft from the Steering column, I removed it from top and bottom but I think only the top was required, mine had an arrow at the top which was aligned with a gap in the splines, if yours has no arrow/gap then you will need to mark it with paint before removal, same with the bottom you should mark it before removal and with the wheels straight
• Remove the white plastic clip from inside the pedal….by doing the following… 1) Mine was embedded too far inside the pedal so I pulled the pedal backwards towards driver seat until it went back to where it should be, 2) then using screwdriver, prise clip out forwards from pedal while pulling pedal backwards (this was very difficult)...EDIT: Note, I say to do this before you loosen the pedal retaining bolts.
• Then undo all the 5 or 6, 13mm nuts that hold the clutch pedal assembly to the vehicle body
• There is a final bolt “top clutch pedal support arm bolt” holding the clutch pedal right up inside at the top but it is undone from the engine bay, where you have to remove the windowsill, and the wiper motor, and then you have to find it, there happens to be 3 bolts there up at the top, the one on the left is the brake pedal upper retaining bolt, as illustrated Haynes book Chapter 9 page 13 picture 11.2 , next to this, 3 inches on the left is the one you can also see in the same picture in the book it has a Torx head, and then the one you want is another inch to the left.
• You don’t have to undo this top clutch pedal support arm bolt, if you prefer you can remove the clutch pedal assembly away from the support arm inside the car by removing the 2 horizontal bolts nearest the drivers seat. I think this will be the easier option.
• I then manoeuvered the clutch pedal out from the car.

Now I have to buy a new one.
EDIT: I did not buy a new one I welded my old one shut again.


EDIT: I think the above should read
......and then you have to find it, there happens to be 3 bolts inside the bulkhead up at the top (of bulkhead), the one on the left is the brake pedal upper retaining bolt, as illustrated, with an arrow, Haynes book Chapter 9 page 13 picture 11.2 , next to this, 3 inches to the right is the one you can also see in the same picture in the book it has a Torx head, and then the one you want is another inch to the right and is also just visible in the same picture.

spira9

Looks like you're having a conversation with yourself and finding out all the answers lol.

alips1

Further to Wig's informative piece, I just wanted to add a few things. My daughters corsa (commonly known as Triggers Broom), yet again required recovery (5 times in less than a year). I know, you are shouting scrap the car, but having just paid £400 for the MOT, I couldn't bear the thought of buying another low budget car and have things go wrong. Better the devil you know and all that. I digress, so another breakdown. "Mum, my clutch has gone again"! Actually, after getting it to the local garage, they tell me it hasn't and its the clutch pedal. I wait around all day for a quote and still no quote but having read on forums like this, I knew it was going to be labour intensive and in excess of £350. I gave up waiting and husband and I towed it back to the house for me to start looking at it. From the help on this forum, I was able to deduce quite quickly that the pedal had failed and I could see that it was indeed at the point of where the clutch pedal presses against the Clutch Cylinder white clip. There was also a give away that white plastic bits were found in the footwell which I can see have snapped off. My daughter described the pedal as just staying down toward the floor.

So, I embark on removing the clutch pedal... I mean how difficult can it be? I can see that all it needs is a new clutch pedal (£50, I didn't want to go for second hand with the known fault) and the white plastic clip that fits on the Cylinder £14.99 (ebay) that was secondhand cause otherwise I'd have to buy the whole Clutch Cylinder (£85) just for the clip. Im not really convinced the bits broken off actually do anything important anyway. As far as I could see the clutch cylinder looked all fine and there was no leakage of fluid anywhere I could see.

I ordered a Haynes manual also off ebay just to assist as no utubes anywhere. I see from Wig that the steering column needs to come out but I also read that someone has done it without removal. I tried to do without removeal but I found I had to at least go part of the way of removing the column. (I did not remove the front seat as I was able to move in the footwell fairly ok).

I had removed all the bolts so it was loose but one thing I could not do, as per Haynes, was remove the support strut right in front of the steering column which is covered under the trim that it then tells you to cut. Call me stupid, but I removed all bolts as it said and just could not find a way to remove it. It looked like it was welded on. So I also didn't bother cutting the trim.

Still it turns out I didn't have to as by manoeuvering the column around, I could get access to one bolt I could not see holding on pedal box. I also misunderstood an instruction and had removed 2 bolts to the left of the pedal box (as you look up under from the floor) thinking this was the support strut and that I could avoid taking the wiper motor out etc to take out the top bolt on the support strut as per Wigs suggestion and just try and manoeuvre the box out. I then finally realized once I got a torch on it, I could see the very top bolt of the support strut high up in the car and it was on the other side where I had already removed the 2 lower bolts. I then realised I would have to take out wiper motor to get access from the engine side.

I also want to add that I too had great difficult working out how to get off the white plastic clip that sits on the end of the cylinder in order to release the pedal for manoeuverability Wig was right, its a nightmare. As mine had the ends sheared off, I had to get long nosed pliers to pinch the end (closest to the cyclinder) to release it but because my pedal had metal fatigue right on the bit where it hits the white plastic, the metal had split and bent outwards (allowing the white clip to travel right through the pedal) so when I tried to move the pedal off the clip there was no room for it to move back off the clip cause it was hitting silver part of the box. I ended getting pliers on the broken bit and completely breaking it off. (Difficult to explain without photo).

So, yes I had to remove the wiper arms, the wiper motor, the water strip off windscreen just to be able to get to the nut from the engine that released the support strut. Wig describes it to the left of the torx bolt but its actually 1 inch to the right as you look from the engine and can be seen in the Haynes manual as Wig says. Once I removed the support strut, I could then wiggle the pedal out off the threads. All in all, it took me one solid day to do... I know I am no mechanic (I take X-rays for a living) but I found this a real challenge so anyone who can do this in an hour, I'm impressed. I am waiting for the new pedal so I really hope I can remember how to put everything back again.

Hope you find some of this additional help to Wigs post.

Wig

Good job! It's a difficult job that one. That's why I answer my own questions on my threads so someone like you will find it. That's really made my day that you found it. (OK slightly sexist comment).... I am very impressed that you do stuff like this.

As I said, you only have to remove the "intermediate shaft" top fastner from the steering column, the "intermediate shaft" is just the universal joint connector bit, you just undo the top fastener and slide it downwards off the shaft and leave it to dangle, only removing the bottom of the intermediate shaft if you really need to.

On mine I pulled the pedal backwards with some force and it popped back into it's original position inside the metal cage on the pedal. I then had the fun of using screwdrivers and pliers on the white plastic while pushing the pedal backwards again, until it came out. Also, The white clip should be removed with the pedal still bolted in place, it makes it easier to put force in the right direction etc. and I hope your broken white clip still works, sounds like you broke it some more to get it out. mine only the very little tips of the legs broke off. Ridiculous price for a piece of white plastic.

It should have been possible to remove the two bolts that secure the pedal assembly to the long metal arm that goes all the way up inside to the top. Thus avoiding the removal of wiper motor etc.

Sorry, I obviously got "left" mixed up with "right" in my description, All three bolts appear to be showing in the Haynes picture, the arrowed one is the brake then 3 inches to the right there is a torx one, then 1 more inch to the right there is the clutch pedal one.

By the way, my update for this thread is that I welded my metal cage on the pedal back shut again, a few globs of weld and it was strong enough to put back on and see what happens... it worked and is still good today.


My other news is that when I can be bothered, I will be doing some or all of this removal again as my clutch master cylinder has gone, (my corsa currently is off the road waiting for me)..... at least I think it is master cylinder, just reading about them just now, maybe it is the slave cylinder so pedal removal may not be required.

Hope your cylinder does not also go .... If I recall correctly there was a very slight symptom of the clutch not disengaing 100% when changing gears a few weeks before it went completely.

droopsnoot

Clutch pedal failure is common on Mk1 Audi TT as well - basically it's a poor design of pedal, where all the load is taken by a part that's only folded over, not welded in place.


Who'd have thought how much easier it would be to do a job like that on something the man in the street would consider to be a more complicated vehicle, though? As I recall it, the only complicated part about doing mine was holding a spring in place while putting the pedal back on. Certainly nowhere near as complex as the descriptions above.


Audi don't have it down as a "known fault", but dealers generally carry the clutch pedal in stock (or did when mine failed), which IIRC is under £30. Trouble is, the new one has the same weakness, so you might as well remove the old one, gather the bit of metal from the footwell and have someone weld it back in place for you.

SteveSteveSteve

Having owned a number of Vauxhalls, the overriding design ethos seems to be:

Does it fit there? If yes, well then, that's where it goes. If no, just squeeze it in where ever it will fit.

len1964

In the last week I have removed three corsa clutch pedals, and honest to god I just want to start swearing! and as for that white plastic clip...

A week ago my daughters clutch went. We got the good old RAC out and they diagnosed a boken clutch pedal and towed us home. I must say I was relieved to hear that it was just the pedal that had failed and not the hydrolics. Easy job, thinks I. Little did I know.

Looking on the internet the only info I could find was this forum. I read the accounts of Wig and alips1. How hard could it be (a lady done it - sorry, couldn't resist that) so monday morning I headed to the local scap yard to get a new pedal. Three trips later I did get one off. I won't go into detail, but for what its worth, for anyone attempting this job, here's my recommended method. Big thanks to Wig and alip, reading your acounts helped me no end. anyway, here's how I'd do it (again)

Make it as easy as possible, remove the whole steering column. Its not hard. Take off the airbag, take of the steering wheel, the wiper and indicator switch's. all the electrical connections and the plastic trim. theres six "bolts" holding the thing on. I undid the steering column at the nub, right on the floor of the car, just under the pedal. There is an intermediate connector but this was not an option for me as the head had sheared off the bolt. Both Wig and alips just removed the lower portion off the column, but I can't see how they ever got the pedal out cause there's still a large part of the column in the way.

There's a bar that goes across the footwell that some of the plastic trim attaches to. alips says she couldn't remove this. There's a screw on the right hand side and two nuts on the left. and you gotta get a hacksaw onto the plastic. Get it all out, you gonna need as much room to work as pos. I s£%t you not, this is a swine of a job.

The screw/bolt in the engine bay, I never bothered with. There's the two horizontal bolts at the top of the bracket. just undo these and bend the bracket out of the way. The bracket itself is made from very soft metal, the first one I removed in the scrapyard I broke. And I also damaged the master cylinder - be careful.

Getting the white plastic clip that holds the master cylinder piston onto the pedal off is an absolute b^%$h. especialy if the two feet of the nylon clip are broken (like they will be if the pedal has failed - though to be honest I removed two good ones and pushing in the feet to release the clip did jack. you gotta go in there with a number of small screwdivers and a whole load of bad language) Getting the broken one off my car was hell. I ended up nibbling it off with pliers. I then gathered up all the pieces and burnt them, i then called in a catholic priest...

The first one I removed in the scrap yard took me about four or five hours. The second one about an hour. The second one is the redesigned one so hopefully that won't go again. I've just got the daughter's car back together and a short test drive seemed ok, so fingers crossed. I did get the steering spun out of place, so that I can't be sure everythings exactly where it was but as i said, it seems ok so far. time will tell. I was worried that I might have damaged the master cylinder too, but...

looking on the internet I was able to find so guides for parts of the job, also was able to download pages from haynes manuals to, but i should imagine I am not allowed to name sites here.

Would be interested to hear from Wig how he went with replacing his master cylinder. Was that a hard job?

alips1, is your corsa still on the road?

markudman

OMG, theres 5 30mm nuts

len1964

no, that's just a typo. There's five, or seven if you removing from top bracket, 13mm nuts. I never removed driver's seat, plenty of room with it pushed back

EdGasketTheSecond

The moral of the story seems to be to not buy a Corsa; Cors by name, coarse by nature.