Hello. New to forums here.

When I bought my ranger used, the clutch felt ok. But as a couple weeks had passed, it started to get hard to shift. The clutch doesn't slip at all so a friend of mine said there might be air in the system.

I would pump the clutch pedal a few times and then it would shift ok for a while, then back to shifting hard.

I found the bleeder and had my son help me with bleeding the system. Everything was fine at first but I made a big mistake and now i have no pedal feel at all.

My mistake was i didn't realize what I thought was the reservoir was not the actual reservoir. There was a black rubber thing in the reservoir that I filled with fluid. My mistake was I needed to take out this black rubber thing.

So now i am stuck with no pedal and don't know what to do. When I pulled out the black rubber thing, the reservoir was empty so i filled it and it bubbled for a second and then stopped. Tried pedal at this point and there is no feel at all. It just goes to floor with no effort.

Any help would be much appreciated at this point.

Thanks
Bill

P.S. Forgot to mention if needed, my truck has the 4.0L 5 speed 4x4.

 

Welcome to FTE.

Have a look at this video and see if it will help you.

 

Oh my Gawd. Thank you so much for this awesome video. Going to go and try this here in a few minutes.

 

Getting ready to tackle this job but the video doesn't say how to remove the clutch rod from the piston. Does it just snap out? The video says in snaps into place when installing it but makes it sound like if you use the rod to help purge the air out, it's difficult to remove for installation.

 

Still don't know how to remove the clutch rod from piston so i can remove the master cylinder.

Anybody?

 

Ok, after further reading other posts regarding removal of the clutch rod, it seems the only way is to break it.

BUT...with my truck I was able to remove the entire assembly through the firewall with the rod still intact. I honestly didn't think it would work but it did.

The only problem is, after getting it out and performing the bench bleed as per the above video, the master cylinder had a small leak where the rod goes into the cylinder.

So a trip to the parts store for a new cylinder for under $50, and some clear tubing to perform the gravity bleed, which wasn't easy at all by the way lol definitely not as easy as in the video, and my clutch problem is fixed

The downside with all this is I burned up a full Saturday fixing the problem but the upside is I saved a ton of money doing the repair myself and learned a lot in the process

Anyone possibly know the average length a clutch lasts? My truck has just flipped over 140,000 but had 135,000 when I bought it so I have no idea if its been replaced yet. It's not slipping at all yet so I know there are still some more miles left in it.

 

Good to hear you got it fixed. I'm not sure about clutch life - too many variables such as quality, driving styles, etc. I've got over 140k on my '04 and, I think the clutch may have been replaced, but I'm not sure..

 

Yea, I know there are a lot of variables in clutch life but didn't know if any had an average of how long theirs has lasted from a known replacement. I have heard some say they have had clutches last for 200k but just don't think that could be possible.

I am a pretty average driver but can't say for the previous owner lol. I would change mine and keep track of this but I plan on dropping in a 4BT Cummins in my Ranger sometime this winter or early next year.

I work at the Cummins plant that makes the 6BT engines and a guy I work with has 2 Rangers with the 4BT in them. One is a drag truck that makes about 800 ponies and his street truck he said makes roughly 400 ponies He has a short video on you tube of his street truck that I would link to share but I am still new to that part of sharing things lol. I will try to figure it out if it's ok that I share it here.

 

So how is the clutch? With hydraulic clutch linkage sometimes you can tell the clutch is pretty worn if the engagement point is high on the pedal. New clutch should engage about an inch to inch and a half off the floor. Very worn clutch may be 3 or 4 inches off the floor, or nearly the top of the pedal stroke. Not sure this is definitive as there could be other stuff going on, but it is generally true.