Greetings. Been away from the forum for some time as we moved, changed jobs, and all the other stuff associated with life in the US lately.

My 76, F-259 super cab, 460, 4 speed has been amasingly reliable, but about a week ago, the clutch suddenly would not release fully, even though I'm "standing" on the clutch pedal. In forward or reverse gears, the clutch never fully is released and it shudders the whole truck while I'm shifting gears. If the clutch was failing, it might act like it's slipping all the time when your foot is not on the clutch. My problem is the opposite. I push the clutch pedal down, the clutch does not release fully, making it "crash" into the gears as I shift. Not pretty.

Oh, yeah, this truck has about 337K miles on the original tranny. Engine was rebuilt 16k miles ago.

If this happened slowly overr time, I'd assume something was out of adjustment. This though, sounds like some part failed or broke off inside the clutch because it started happening all at once. When I watch the clutch mechanism outside the bell housing when another person pushes on the clutch, it looks like all the springs and levers are working properly. Is there a fork in there that breaks off? Or a broken lever of some kind?

Anyone else ever have this happen?

Help!! I need to get this thing inspected soon!

 

Sounds to me like you need to adjust your clutch pedal. When you push the pedal down there should be about 1" of play, that 1" should be noting but spring then it should get harder to push.

Also on the bottom of the tranny where it mates with the engine there should be a small metal pan w/4 bolts holding it on. Take that pan off and look inside look for anything out of the ordinary, have someone push on the pedal and look to see if the pressure plate moves(keep your hand out of there). Get back to us.

 

thanks for the tip. I'll check it out and let you know what I find.

 

There are several things that will cause this. Hopefully it is the adjustment, but I will bet on broken parts in the clutch or pressure plate. I had a pilot bearing go bad in my '87 Aerostar years ago that cased the same thing you describe. Good luck!

 

I had the same thing happen to my 1973, more than once. But there were a couple of causes.

The throw out bearing welded itself to the presure plate causing the clutch to never disengage. Nasty on starters and flywheels. Could be a pre-curser for that.

And another time, The clutch linkage rod, that hooks the clutch pedal to the linkage cracked and was holding on by a thread. finally let go and clutch went to floor. Learned how to power shift that day.

hope this helps...

 

I had the same thing happen to a '78 F150 4x4. The cause: Loose bellhousing bolts. My clutch wouldn't disengage at ALL! I tightened them up and it worked for a week. Retightened them using loktite, worked for about a week and half. I sold it soon after that, but that's another story.

 

Guys, once again, thanks for all the quality input. It's hard to beat experience.

This forum is fantastic.

I'll report back when I diagnose this thing or have more questions.

 

i had the springs come out of the clutch disc before and it would cause the same thing. but the spring would fly around in there and cause the clutch not to work.