406oc.co.uk

How hard is it to change the vacc pump?
Occasionally when I start the car the brakes are rock hard and don't work at all for a couple of minutes, fine when you remember but not good when you've forgotten, jump in it and pull away immediately and something stops in front of you
I 'think' it's the vacc pump but not sure but I'm sure Jas or MJB will be along to put me on the right track

Also I was told when I bought it the clutch was on the way out. However the biting point is actually at the bottom of the pedal. The ratchet is dodgy and does not fully return. If I really want to I can stick my boot under it and hook it back up but to be honest I ignore it as it does return halfway which is enough to change gear with. Compared to the 406 it is a pig to change gear but ok as long as you remember you have to dip the clutch all the way to the floor, to the point of pushing the pedal against the bulkhead but then again the 406 is hydraulic and this is cable. The cable has stretched a fair bit but a clutch clinic checked it out without driving it and said the clutch was knackered and there was no point in changing the cable as it would just stretch again very quickly. Their reason for saying the clutch needed replacing was that the cable "creaks", therefore the clutch is knackered
Someone else said they thought the pedal box had possibly been removed and put in wrong as it felt offset, or that the quadrant and cable needed replacing.
As far as I am aware it's on the original clutch and has done 173,000 (that's over 50,000 LESS than the 406)

Sorry Soops, I know not of this vacuum pump, although I know there's a pump built into the ABS unit but that's INCREDIBLY noisy so I can't say I know what it's for (apart from activating the ABS with the engine off using the diag to bleed the system...)

As for the clutch, I reckon (in my limited experience) all knackered cables creak, whether clutch, accelerator or bike brake cables. I'd say the low bite's due to a stretched cable and the creakiness is down to rust. Can you manually adjust the tension on it? If you can free off the cable, you can lift it up from one end and get some lubricant in there to see if it temporarily eases the creaking. If it doesn't, you may have something worn inside the bell housing. Probably not the clutch itself though, although at 173k it'd probably be a false economy to not change it if the gearbox has to come off...

Get yer cable changed first I reckon

Sounds like the vacuum pump.
It is located on the cylinder head at the passengers side (where a distributor would be on a petrol) it is driven by the camshaft and has a pipe going to it.

I think it is held on with 2 or 3 bolts x10mm heads or 13mm heads.As far as I remember, you undo the bolts and the pipe and remove it, fit a new one with a new seal and some sealant.

As for the clutch, as I said before, replace the cable and see how things go, you will be replacing it anyway.

If you still have gear selection problems, given that the biting point is low, I would suggest that the springs in the pressure plate have collapsed and are being hard to depress.Otherwise, the shaft that the clutch release bearing slides on has got gunged up and stopping the bearing sliding freely.

Oops, forgot I'd already posted about the clutch - sorry Jasper
Have got another cable so I will try that first, as for the pump, sounds like an easy(ish) jobbie so I will probably crack on with that at the weekend.