Hi all,


i'm in Perth, Western Australia and have owned my 4x4 Sapphire Cosworth for about 18 months now.

Really enjoying owning and driving the car, but there has always been an issue with the gearbox that i'm struggling to pinpoint where the problem lies..


So, approx 80% of the time, when first attempting to drive the car out of the garage, i can select gears and release the clutch and rather than pull away as expected the car will creep along and lose drive. The revs climb but car will stay still. If i keep attempting to engage and release the clutch, slowly the car will start to drive as normal and will always "fix" itself once it starts to move. Something i've also noticed is that if i hold revs on the car in neutral for a few mins before the first drive, the problem hardly ever appears...as if something needs to warm up to work properly.

Signs obviously point to clutch, but then other times the car will drive perfectly fine with no issue.

I'm no mechanic, but i'd have thought clutch slip would show up constantly and slip moreso when coming on boost?, but this isn't the case.

i've read up about the Viscuous Centre Diff potentially being an issue but by all accounts it sounds like if this plays up, it essentially makes the car RWD and wouldn't affect drive, and i've never had the car behave like a RWD.....

One thing i should add, when in neutral and foot off the clutch there is a whine that goes away when pressing the clutch down.


I've done a bit of research on the cars history since being in Aus, and it seems the previous owner here had a similar issue with the car.

Car was originally UK reg H249 CKP and was imported here around 2022.


Any more knowledgable members on here experienced similar issues, know of any history of the car or can suss out what's going on??

I'm due back in the UK in June and hoping to source any parts needed to fix then.


Cheers

 

Sounds indeed like the clutch. That is basically the only thing that can slip, so I cannot think of anything else.

The whine sounds like the clutch release bearing.

The viscous center coupling cannot be the problem. Even if it would be completely worn out, it would still drive all 4 wheels. The only thing it will no longer do is transmit torque to wheels that still have grip when other wheels are spinning. With a worn viscous center coupling the car does not become RWD. It just feels more like RWD, because the rear gets 66% of the torque and will therefore spin the wheels before the front wheels will.

 

sounds like your pressure plate