Just curious. I am getting ready to replace the clutch, master and slave cylinders. Truck has been sitting for a long time, finally getting around to it.
I have the Haynes manual, but was wondering if there happened to be a website or some place where someone has done one , maybe taking pics, tips and tricks etc....Just looking to get as much info as possible before i dig in here.
any info appreciated.

 

I just replaced the clutch in my 87 this past summer and tried taking progression pics. Ill post a couple. do you have 4x4? 4 speed or 5 speed? Mine is the 4 speed and boy that tranny is a pain. my tip would be if you have the room when you pull the tranny straight back off the bell housing. DONT lower it, leave it at the same height, so when you get the new clutch on and get the bell housing back on, the tranny will slide right into place.

I made the mistake of lowering mine to get it out of the way, and then i had trouble getting it to line up again. Dont shimmy the tranny back and forth to get it to go in. That clutch plate WILL bend very easily, esp. if you do that (i almost bent mine=total loss/replacement).

Another tip, that pilot bearing will be a big pain too. I "rented" 2 piltot bearing pullers from advance auto parts, broke both of them (very cheaply made tools) I ended up having to cut mine with a cut off wheel, then chisel it out with an air chisel, i dont recommend this because you can very easily damage the housing for the pilot bearing and mess up the crank.

When filling the tranny back up with fluid when your all done is a little tricky too. The haynes manual says to use a turkey baster I think, I tried that and took too long, so I ran a piece of garden hose up to under the hood and my brother poured the fluid into a funnel going into the hose and I held the other end in the tranny. Gotta be careful doing this though, we spilled alot of fluid in my driveway because by the time the tranny was full and was pouring out, the hose was still full of fluid too and we couldnt cut off the flow.

 

I used the haynes manual to do mine and got through it fine. just follow the steps closely, it'll pay off.

this pic is the new pressure plate.



this is the new flywheel. my old one had a lot of heat damage to it and I dont know if i could have found anyone where i live to turn it down anyway. So a new $75 flywheel wasn't too bad, mays well since everything is torn apart.



Here is with the bell housing back on. You can also see there that I used a floor jack to hold the back of the engine up so it wouldnt sag down so much because my engine mounts are old and dry rotted (one actually fell off the other day)



I also recommend while the tranny and transfer case is out, to use some engine degreaser and clean them up with a wire brush. (it helps esp if you have an oil leak, so you arent completely covered in oil or grease while putting everything back together.

I also put all the bolts back in from what part they came out of as soon as i could so I wouldnt loose anything.

Another important note, dont forget to put the dust cover back on before you put on the flywheel. I forgot that until i had just put the pressure plate all the way back on, so I lost some time taking that all back off. If you can get some help to hold the clutch disk/pressure plate up while you bolt it back on, I would recommend that because I didnt have anyone to help me doing that and it was a major pain. That pressure plate is HEAVY esp, with one hand while putting bolts in with the other.

 

I also had the entire exhaust system off at the same time, that helped for clearance issues too, but I already had it off anyway, I didnt take it off just to do the clutch.

 

I'm thinking about doing this to my truck too. Fordowner, did you use a transmission jack? When I replaced the fluid in my trans, I used a pump that screws to the top of the fluid bottle. The only waste was when you removed the pump from the bottle.

The only thing that would hinder me from doing this job is the darn pilot bearing issue. And the possibility of needing to replace the rear main seal.

What about replacing as opposed to resurfacing the flywheel? My truck has over 200K on the original clutch system.

donberry, hope you don't mind me piggybacking on your post. Hopefully some of our resident experts or experienced members will reply with more tips and possible gotcha situations.

 

I used a motorcycle jack just because I didnt have a tranny jack. It was a pain in the a$$ to use though. With a truck with over 200K on the original system, I would say replace the flywheel. Its only about 80 bucks, I dont know how much it would be to have it machined. One trick people do with the pilot bearing is to pump grease behind it to push it out. I didn't have any luck doing that, but all I had was a small grease gun. Some of these other guys on here can tell you more about that trick. I think the haynes manual says something about it.

 

hey, thanks for all of the info so far.
The truck is a 87 with the 6 cylinder 4 speed tranny.
Son's truck. 1st the master/slave cylinder started going out and clutch pedal didn't really even engage until it was almost to the floor. Pretty sure clutch was going anyway as he had the truck for many years and had never had a clutch put in it - and clutch did finally fail. Per the norm, started going out slowly, he kept driving it until it was pretty much shot.
I happened to have a 97 Explorer I wasn't using so let him "borrow" that. Few years later, with about 260,000 miles on it, the Explorer's tranny (auto) is gone now (was slipping when I let him "borrow it) and has some engine problems.
So now he is finally getting around to having his F150 repaired and silly me said I would do it for him, with his help of course.
Also needs a new oil pump which seems like it may be a bit of a pain to get to and will be doing that while I am down there.
I used to like doing this stuff in my "younger" days (I am 52 now), but I have a severely disabled back (100% disabled vet) and lying underneath a truck isn't as appealing as it used to be - but with the economy doing so well, son needs to save every penny he can.
Anyway - is how I came about to be doing this repair. Been a while since I have been under a vehicle. Swapped out auto trans. before, have done motorcycle clutches, but never a clutch replacement on a truck before so is why I was just looking for any useful info I can find.
Is great thing about google and Haynes manuals tho - you can pretty much fix anything yourself if you have the desire.

Piggybacking the thread - have at it, I believe we are all in this mess together and you may get info that is beneficial to me

 

Thats what I got, 87 300 six with the 4speed 4x4. Its going to be easier to change that oil pump when you have the tranny and everything out of the way. In the manual it says, u have to lift the engine up a few inches to get the oil pan off and then get to the oil pump. that will be fun in itself.\

A little thing i like to do anytime im working under my truck is to drive it up on ramps. I could actually sit on the ground and sit straight up under the truck after i pulled the tranny out with my hat up through the shifter hole in the transmission hump. I'm 205 lbs and 6'-3" so thats saying something height wise.

I got another tip, the crossmember that holds the tranny up, you have to unbolt that, the manual says take the whole thing off, but the upper brackets are a pain because the top of the bolt is about 1/4-1/2" from the cab. I didnt take off those brackets, but I did need a big crow bar and a BFH to pound the crossmember out. I would use ear plugs while doing that, because its pretty loud under there, haha