Either one or a combination of both but either way, fix it right away. ;)
My '91 Bronco acts stupid like that when it gets low of fluid.

The mechanical one in my '75 F150 never acted up even one time in 37
years, 2 months and 1 week. (Feb 14 '75 ;)

Alvin in AZ
ps- Oh heck, plumb forgot, it's the end of the world. :/ Party instead! ;)

 

Wanted to check with you guys on it first in case it was something else that was a common problem. I guess new bushings could break, not impossible.
Guess it's time to investigate it futher then. Thanks for the advice!
Oh, but being the end of the world, should I even bother?

 

Tripped over this thread today, had the same problem w/my 95 excab dually only 90k miles, one very careful owner. When I got it home from purchase process, sounded like something was falling out of the underside at idle. Fortunately my shop manager new what was up, new smf kit fixed that problem, new injectors and lift pump took care of the other issues. Was told we had a customer that kept driving w/his dmf until bad things happend, when my guys disassembled it found broken engine block, very bad.

 

Gues I got lucky then. I seen on the back of the engine where that piece of spring fell out it left some scratch marks. Slightly bent the lip on the oil pan too. No real damage.

 

The bushings may be good, but if the eyelet in the pushrod to the master cylinder is worn (ovalized/egged-out), you can get just this effect, as the little rod on that arm moves around in the eyelet hole. Check that, and if it's ovalized, your best option is to cut it off and replace it with a Heim joint (just do a search on "clutch heim" here and on the other Ford truck sites).

As for hydraulic vs. mechanical, I've had vehicles with linkage ('83 F150) cable (several Omni/Horizons) and hydraulic (F250s) clutches. They all fail. The pivot that held the linkage on the F150 to the tranny broke off (Bronco Graveyard to the rescue). Broke a clutch cable on the '80 Omni and had to speed-shift thru downtown Ann Arbor and parallel park it with no clutch and fix it on the street. And all the usual failures with the various F250s (master, slave, pushrod). You just gotta know what you have, what's likely to fail, and how to be ready to fix it when (not if) it does.

 

The '90 parts truck I bought for the ZF was a "company truck :/ LOL" with
188k miles on it. This is what the pushrod and its clutch lever stud looked
like...

I swapped it out using the gold colored brake push rod and welded on a stud.
Seems like I used a 7/16" bolt for the new stud? Drilled a little hole through
it for the hairpin-clip. Installed new nylon bearings and washers on the sides
to minimize side to side play etc. <--you know, the usual tinkering-fool stuff ;)

Had to shorten the brake rod tho and re-round the end, used a de-burring
wheel to finish it off...

Alvin in AZ