Here's the deal. The clutch on my flate mates car, keeps needing adjustment. Then a while later (couple of wekks or so) it will need readjusting again to acheive disengaugement. It's no big deal, but we're running out of thread ! I could pack it out with washers, to give us more adjustment. But it would be nice to know why its doing that. Is it a posibility that the pressure plate fingers have gotten sad? It's not actually a datto, it's a subee. The old girl has 350 000kms on the clock, but it serves us well as a mountain hack for snowboarding. The field we are riding this year opens next weekend, so it's getting the annual pre winter once over. And inexplicably, despite the phenomonally high mileage, it doesn't burn any oil. but you can hear the lifters a block away!

probably the cable stretching (if it's a cable clutch), it will break soon if this is the case, probably best to replace before he has to limp home

I had a similar problem years ago and it was the gearbox to engine bolts lose. It looked fine untill you put your foot on the clutch and the gearbox moved backwards.
olboy

there's an easy fix for the noisy lifters too - its an oil supply issue, not the lifters themselves. A $10 seal for the front of the oil pump will do the trick.

What happens is the seal perishes, allowing the pump to suck some air in which aerates the oil. When it gets into the lifters, the air compresses and the lifter can't do its job properly and they sound stuffed. Its a common subie thing - poor little oil pump has to lift the oil from about a foot below!

You have to remove the timing belts to get to it, so it's a good opportunity to have a close inspection of them, and replace them if there are any signs of wear - like shiny parts around the edges of the teeth, or smalls cracks when you bend the belt with the toothed side out.

The cambelt was done 10000 ago, but thanks for the tip about the lifters. I doubt whether cable stretch is the cause, it's been doing it for ages. When I had a subie ute the cable snapped after only two adjustments.