64 C20 Clutch Issue

[bhinson70]

My 1964 C20 has a strange issue with the clutch. I drove it and parked it in my back yard a couple of weeks ago. When I got in the other day to run an errand here's what happened.
It fired right up and I put the granny 4 speed into reverse to back out. As I let out on the clutch, the truck did not move and kept running smoothly. I tried it in a forward gear and it did the same thing. With the truck running and the clutch fully disengaged, the truck kept idling smoothly. I could even shift through all of the gears with the truck running and my foot off of the clutch with no grinding and the truck continuing to idle smoothly. My mechanic says it is possibly broken clutch linkage. I have not had a chance to check. Any ideas?

[markeb01]

My next door neighbor had this identical problem about 30 years ago with a standard shift 1955 Plymouth. Upon inspection, it turned out someone stole his driveshaft. The thieves wanted the stick shift transmission and had it almost out, when they were scared off. He was a milkman and always got up early. Later a paperboy confirmed another 55 Plymouth raced down the hill about the same time.

It sounds like for what ever reason, the transmission is not sending power to the rear end, or something broken in the rear end could also prevent the truck from moving. It just seems strange something major like this would break while sitting still in the yard for a couple of weeks.

Although - back in the 60's the same thing happened to my sisters Falcon. She got in to go to work, the car wouldn't move, and made a loud noise from the rear end. I was about 14 at the time, and became a hero for changing out the rear end, even getting paid for the job. The little detail that I neglected to share, was the last time I was doing burn outs in the front yard, the ring gear exploded.

I doubt it’s the clutch linkage, because if the clutch was not disengaging, the gears would be grinding when you attempted to shift. I'm not experienced with 64 C20 linkage specifically, but conventional linkage from this period frequently has the clutch push rod seated in a cup formed into the end of the throwout arm. The rod is held against the throwout arm by an extension spring. If the spring breaks, the rod can simply fall out of the socket disabling the system. Repositioning the rod back in its seat and installing a new spring solves the problem, but this doesn’t sound like the issue you’re having.