After doing some research on my own, I found that only a select few have had the problem Im having and no real results, so I decided to put my post up and see if I can get some help.

Yesterday I was driving to work and noticed a small difference in my clutch play before it actually caught pressure to the master cylinder. Not a big deal, truck still shifted, and it was a small amount of play.

Well, as the day went on and driving home from work and to dinner, I noticed the play staying the same, however pressure on the clutch decreasing. I also began to notice that it was hard to shift gears.

After leaving dinner, I tried to go and I could not shift into first for the life of me. I pronounced the clutch dead. I ended up having to have a friend tow me back home. I have no idea what the problem is. I at first thought it might be the slave cylinder, and it still might just be something as simple as bleeding the clutch (yes, its hydraulic). But I don't think so because I still have some pressure on the clutch and the play stays about the same....I just don't have the same strong force when pressing down on the clutch, but then again, it just doesn't get pushed to the floor.

One thing to add also, if I keep a lot of pressure on my shifter (with clutch pushed down) and keep it going into first (even though its not really in gear) it will SLLLOOOOWWWLY start moving. Once I get enough movement, I can then fully shift it into first. So basicially, im driving without a clutch.

As a little background, I have 96 Ranger 2.3L 2WD with 135k miles. I replaced the clutch plate, pressure plate, and throw-out bearing two weeks ago because I had a grinding noise (which was beleived to be the throw-out bearing). After replacing the clutch, the grinding noise went away for the first day, but then came back. So I really have two problems. I did not replace the pilot bearing when I replaced my clutch, could that be the cause of the squealing (the grinding is gone since replacing the throwout bearing, but there is still a squeal).

Lastly...what would have caused my clutch to go out like this? Everything was going fine. Could it be a broken slave cylinder that is letting air in? or cracked?

Please help

 

Take a look under the dash where the clutch rod goes thru the firewall, if you are lucky you will find clutch fluid & just need to replace the master cylinder.

 

I used to have a 96 Ranger 2.3 2wd that had about 94k on it. I had a very similar problem where it wouldn't go into first when the motor was on, and other gears were hard to get into sometimes also. Usually i would just keep it in second and sit on the clutch at a stoplight and then pull away in second. If i had to go down to first I would have to turn off the engine, shove it in first, and start it back up again.
Well after a week or so, I decided to take a look underneith the truck to see how hard it would be to replace the clutch and whether or not it would be something I could do myself. I looked at the brake master cylinder and moved some of the hoses around, and I probably pushed the clutch pedal down 100 times or so when it was off. When I went to pull it back up the driveway, everything was fixed and it worked perfect after that (then I wrecked it 2 months later). I suspect that it was just an air bubble or something that had gotten in there.

So, I would say that you should check your clutch fluid level and top that off, then try pushing the clutch pedal up and down a bunch of times while the engine is off. I know this isn't the proper procedure for bleeding air out, but it worked for me.

 

Don't you just hate it when you think you fixed everything and it is still being a PITA. I remember talking to you in your first post:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=228841

Where you were bleeding the lines after your clutch replacement. The loss of pedal pressure does sound like one of two things. 1) air is still in the lines. 2) like 87 XLT said could be MC.

As for your squealing sound......? When does this squeal happen? Like, are you pressing in or letting out the clutch? Or is it just whenever? I would think the piolt bearing is the most likely culprit. Don't quote me on this, but I think it is supposed to allow the crank shaft and the transmission shaft to spin independant while the clutch is being used. That is just looking at the diagrams. I have not been able to figure that one out. Can anyone correct me on this???

 

Murphy's Law states that any part that you don't change while everything is apart is doomed to fail.
Try bleeding the system before you tear it down again. If the clutch master was allowed to drain completely, there could be a bit of air trapped in it.

 

Well, I did end up bleeding the clutch again, which got the thing working. Now I just have to hope theres not a leak and that it won't happen again, otherwise im just going to bring to the shop to have them fix it. Trucks are a lot of work =)


As for the squealing sound, It happens inbetween the clutch being fully disengaged to fully engaged. So as I begin to let off on the clutch pedal, the squealling will start, then as the clutch is fully engaged and im driving, the sound goes away. Still sound like a pilot bearing? I really don't know the purpose of the pilot bearing so I don't know when the pilot bearing actually gets used, and if its inbetween the clutch being fully disengaged to fully engaged.

Thanks for all your guys' help so far

 

Okay, well, its broke again. Same issue. My guess is something is not tight. And since the only thing I've removed was the clutch hose from the slave cylinder, I am going to re-seed that connection and hopefully that works. I noticed some fluid inbetween the connection of the slave cylidner to the hose. I really hope this works. If not, I have a time scheduled to take it to ford and waste $80 for them to tell me whats wrong. And if they don't know off the top of their head (which probably will be the case), I will have to spend for money for them to examine it closer.

Any other guesses if this doesn't work? I could not find any thing else that looked like it was leaking. One thing that is odd, is there seems to be a stain in my rug underneath the clutch rod that pushes in the master cylinder. I don't remember it being there before. But I don't know how it got there. And I hope its not the master cylinder, cuz thats $120 from ford =( -- Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Shawn

 

See my previous post and get the master cyl. from Napa, not Ford.

 

Shawn - Hey, sorry to hear that your troubles are back. I don't think there is much else that will stain your carpet down there. Spilled drinks.....but I am sure it would feel sticky vs. feeling like oil. Well look on the brite side, you may have found the source of your problems.