'98 F150 / 4.2L / 5spd OD / 4x4 / 80,000 miles

Bought truck new, not my DD but used regularly. Last year clutch started "sticking" with pedal depressed. Got worse and worse, bled the slave and all was good for almost a year. Problem resurfaced last month, pedal starts to feel "catchy" when depressed, eventually doesn't want to come back up, or if it does it is not smooth. Bleeding the slave fixes the problem and it's back to being normal. But within a day or so it's acting up again. I've bled the slave 4 times in the last couple months, fluid had been completely replaced with synthetic DOT 3/4. Original fluid was almost black, even though it had been changed a year ago.

Planning to order a new slave and TOB, is there something else this could be? Every slave I've had fail leaked fluid, this one doesn't see to be leaking. Not looking forward to dropping the tranny and disconnecting the transfer case, but before I order parts thought I'd throw it out there.

 

My F150 is sporting a new clutch slave cylinder. Doing it by myself, on jack stands, I prolly have 18-20 hours in it. Just getting the truck up on jacks took an evening. And then I decided I didn't trust my life to the Hazard Fraught jack stands, so I ordered a pair of 22 Ton stands which took a few days to get.

Once I got everything positioned and got ready to drop the transfer case, I realized I had the truck so high my ATV lift that I normally use wouldn't reach. So I grabbed a nice used transmission jack which made it possible to do this job solo. That took a week to get.

I soaked the torsion bars every night in Hilco lube. When it came time to remove them they slid out, easy peasy. I used anti-seize when I finally put them back in. I was surprised that the adjusting nut showed 10 threads on the driver side and 12 threads on the pass side. When I put it all together I set both sides at 11 threads, as far as I can tell the front of the truck is riding level.
I think the worst part of the whole deal was getting the transfer case and then the transmission lined up, but only because I always had to reposition the piece on the jack, I'm a moron. And then the upper left transmission to engine bolt was a true beotch to get started, especially since there was a bracket that secured fuel lines that the bolt had to catch as well.

A lift would have made this job a 100% easier. Access would have been better, plus you could just step out and grab a tool. As it turned out, it looked like I had every tool I owned under the truck with me. My next garage will have at least 10 ft walls for a lift.

As for the slave, it was bad. I could feel it binding after I removed it. I couldn't figure out a way to get the tranny all the way down without removing the exhaust crosspiece, so I moved the tail up over the pipe and then lowered the front enough to swap the slave. I bought the Bosch unit at Rock Auto, the new one has a rubber boot over it, I assume to keep the piston clean. If it lasts 17 years like the stocker did, I'll be happy. I did have an "oh sheet" minute after I got it all bolted up. I was cleaning the shop and noticed there was a small o-ring in the bottom of the box that the slave came in. I didn't remember seeing one and the Haynes manual didn't mention it. I about cried thinking I might have left something out. But it turns out it was the o-ring that goes on the end of the hydraulic line. I hadn't noticed it when I unhooked the old one because I capped it off right away in case it was going to leak. So my truck is back on the road, clutch is as smooth as ever, and I'm happy as can be. Cheers, PMR.