Last night my clutch in my 98 2 wheel drive Ranger quit working. The truck has 243,000 on the original clutch. It wouldn't disengage so I got it home by shifting w/o a clutch and shutting it off to put it in gear. I checked it out today and found that the master and slave cylinder seem to be working and it is full of fluid with no visible leaks. The peddle feels normal. I took off the rubber inspection plug and had my daughter push and release the clutch. I can see the throw out bearing moving the pressure plate. Every time that she pushed the clutch it squeaked real loud from inside the inspection hole and there is a rattle from that same area when the truck is running. The rattle has been there for about 3 months but it got a lot worse yesterday. My guess is that one or more of the little coil springs in the clutch disk are broken and have gotten jammed between the flywheel and pressure plate. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

243K on a single clutch? That's remarkable.

I don't know much about Ranger clutches, but in your case, it certainly sounds like time for a new one.

 

I've had all of the parts bought since December of 2005. I'm going to put a new oil pan on while the transmission is out of the way.

 

the clutch is a simple job overall. i've done several and would also recommend replacing the clutch master and salve cylinder at the same time you do the clutch. the clutch master comes with the new hose. don't forget to get the fuel line disconnect tool so that you can disconnect the clutch hose from the slave cylinder. it can sometimes be a bear to remove.

 

Im going to replace the slave and the pilot bearing but Im going to chance the master. (I can always do that later if it fails). I have a whole set of the fuel line tools.

 

The problem ended up not being the clutch afterall. The pilot bearing piled up and bound the input shaft. The clutch disk, although it was quite thin, was not down to the rivets yet. I had the flywheel turned and only had to have .003 removed. I replaced the slave cylinder and re-used the master. I had to bleed it twice to get it to work. It's no easy job to replace the oil pan as even with the transmission and flywheel out of the way, we had to unhook the motor mounts and raise the engine about 2 1/2". The exhaust pipe was in the way too so we opted to cut the pipe with a sawsall and weld it back in rather than to try to loosen the manifold bolts. The good news is that my little truck is back on the road with a good clutch and no more oil leaks.