I recently had the manual transmission in my '97 Ranger 2.3 4x2 replaced with a rebuilt unit. They also replaced the clutch, slave and master cylinders. I'm very dissatisfied with the results, and I need some input. (I'm at college, 300 miles from home, the mechanic and the truck, presently driving my fathers car, which complicates matters.)

The clutch pedal now grabs an inch off the floor, making the truck difficult to drive and shift. The top few inches of the pedal stroke are extremely soft, and then it firms up a bit. I suspected air in the master cylinder, so I had the shop re-bleed the master according to the directions I found on this site (pull the push-rod out of the cylinder to let the air out), but they said it is basically unchanged. They think that after a few weeks of driving, the clutch should break in a bit and raise the pedal- does this sound right?

The second problem is the speedometer. The speedometer reads considerably higher than road speed now, which it didn't do before. (I checked it with my friend's car, and an indicated 40 was about 34, and an indicated 45 was about 40). I assumed that they had failed to swap the speedometer gear when they installed the rebuilt transmission, but they said they did. They said that it must be a difference internal to the trans, and as I did not purchase the trans through them, they were not interested in trying to repair it. Did the rebuilder send me a slightly different transmission, or is something else up?

Thanks,
Ian

 

Idk ab the clutch.

I would say the speedo is fubar. I'm willing to be that the shop didn't change out the speedo gear, assuming that it would be the same. The transmission wouldn't be different. The difference would be that the truck that you have probably has 4.11 or 3.56 gear ratio when the donor truck had a 3.08-- Therefore a different speedo gear. I call that shame on the shop.

 

I understand why the speedo drive gear needs to be changed, and I really wouldn't blame the shop for forgetting to swap it (provided they fixed it free when I took it back), but the mech. said that he had done it when he was doing the work initially. My mother and I have used this shop for years, and I really would hate to think they were feeding me a line.

 

there is definitely air in the clutch line. the speedo gear does need to be changed. they sure are feeding you a line.

 

I forgot to mention that the day after picking the truck up, I took it to the local dealer (good, but pricey) to get the clutch bled, since the shop that had done the work is not open on weekends, and it would have saved a lot of headaches to get it fixed over the weekend. They also found no air in the line.

At this point, I think my only options are to drive it as-is, or fix it myself. Can the speedo gear be changed while the tranny is in the truck? I still have the core that needs to be shipped back to the rebuilder; anyone know if I can tell by looking at the gear (if any) that's in that whether it is the one that matches my truck? (It's a 4-banger with 3.73 gears.)

EDIT: If I hold the clutch ALL the way to the floor, the clutch does seem to disengage completely (vehicle doesn't "walk," and I can shift back and forth first to reverse without grinding). Provided I'm careful to fully disengage the clutch when shifting, will I damage anything if I drive it as-is for a few months?

 

If it's fully disengaging no, but remember jsut because it doesn't move doesn't mean it's fully disengaging. Might wanna pop the peephole cover off and take a look.

That being said, bleeding the Ranger clutches is a complicated process. I'd suggest going to the tech thread and bleeding it yourself using the process described in there. If that doesn't fix it, perhaps something else is wrong.

 

Yes. I changed mine when I swapped to bigger tires with the help of the truck being jacked up, but that may not even be needed.

The gear is on the side of the tranny. Undo one screw and yank it out and swap needed gear in.

Grab the old one from the core and swap away. All other gears invovled--inside the tranny, rear axle...they are the same, so swapping to the original gear should cure matters...well, this one at least.

 

Ian,

I had this exact same problem with my 96 Explorer. I let a shop do the clutch when my wife exploded the tranny (this is how I found out about those danged rubber plugs). I got the same results that you did, subpar operation after the fix. I, like you, took it to the dealer when the shop said they couldn't do any better. Dealer replace the clutch components. With less than 100 miles on the new parts, the presure plate was already burned up (blue marks) and the clutch disc worn severly. Dealer also did a poor job of bleeding the clutch but it was much better than the local shop did.

Aft4er a yera and a half of the badly bled clutch, I decided to take a run at bleeding the clutch using the method described by HANK in the following thread:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...hreadid=217115

Made all the difference in the world. It's almost back to where it was before the tranny exploded. I was a bit nervous doing this. While what I had was less than optimal, I was concerned that I would make it worse. Also, the instructions don't really give you a good idea of how far to pull out the plunger and how much fluid will come out. I finally figuired this out. Plunger will come almost all the way out and this is probably where your shop mechanic dropped the ball. Anyhow, I could probably stand to do one more itteration with the method to make mine perfect again.

My recommendation is to do it about 10-15 times tio make sure you get all of the air out. Doing it too many times won't hurt. Doing it not enough will leave the problem not totally corrected.

Anyhow, good luck with it. I know how annoying this can be.

BTW - when the clutch let go on my daughter's Ranger, I did the work myself figurinbg that I couldn't screw it up worse than "a professional". I made certain that the clutch pedal did not get pushed once the hydraulic line was disconnected, and used the Motorcraft - bench bled slave cylinder/throw-out bearing assembly. Maybe I got rel lucky, but the clutch hydraulics did not even need to be bled.

 

Does '97 have a speedo gear? I was under the impression that from '95+, the speedometer was electric and got's it signal from the VSS, thus it's ability to read speed while going backwards. I've really never looked to see if the transmission still has a speedometer gear, but I know there is no cable coming into the cab on a '95+.

 

It has a speedo gear on the trans, but two wires running out of it, not a cable. It almost seems like some sort of hybrid design, halfway between a cable-operated setup and using the VSS.

Anyway, I talked to the rebuilder, and they said to pull the speedometer gear and look inside and see if the gear inside the rebuilt was the same color as the one in my core (which I had fortunately not mailed off yet). They weren't. I'm hoping that a speedo gear for some other tire/axle combination will get me back to normal on that score. I'll talk to the rebuilder next week.

As for the clutch, my buddy and I bled it last night and today. It feels a little bit better, but not really great. I don't have any more time to deal with it now, and it is driveable, so I guess I'll just leave it. I may try bleeding it again when I have more time.