Hey all,

I have an 89 f250 with the 7.3 and zf5, and I am having some issues with it. This is my project truck, and I've only driven it about 75 yards or so in the back yard.

When I went to start the truck the other day, I had the clutch pushed all the way down and it wouldn't start, no crank or anything (like I didn't have the clutch down at all). Eventually, I had jumped the clutch safety switch, and she cranked over just fine. Then as I went to drive the truck, it went into gear just fine, but as soon as I let the smallest amount of pressure off of the clutch, it grabbed and we started moving.

Now, I was thinking that I just have a bad clutch safety switch and that's just how the clutch is (releases early), which I'm not really fond of. Then I noticed that the bearing on the master cylinder rod had been replaced with a metal sleeve of sorts and it was way out of round, making it so the MC rod eyelet wouldn't fit all the way onto the pedal assembly nub. There seems to be a little bit of play in the pedal because of this, but it doesn't seem like much.

I guess my question is, would the heim joint fix possibly fix my problems? My thinking was that the clutch safety switch wasn't being all the way engaged due to the MC rod bearing being worn out, and that also being the reason for the clutch grabbing the gear really early.

There was no noticeable flex in the firewall, and no cracks in the firewall (I had the dash completely off days prior).

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any help.

 

It doesn't take much play to cause problems with the clutch linkage in our trucks. It does sound like your truck is a good candidate for the heim joint fix. The bushings in the pedal assembly are known to wear and cause issues like you are describing.