Hey yall, I have a ‘84 full size bronco with a manual trans hydraulic clutch. I recently put a new clutch disk, master cylinder, and slave cylinder in her. I put everything back together, bench bled the new master cylinder, bled the system, and now the clutch does not disengage. There are no leaks in the master cylinder or the slave cylinder. The rod on the slave pushes out and I slid off the clutch fork boot to see if it was even moving the pressure plate and it is.
I’ve been fighting my truck for about a good 2 weeks now. Is it possible for the fingers on the pressure plate to go bad so they would not disengage the clutch?
I have bled the system numerous times. The petal is stiff like it was before I did the clutch job. What would be the cause of the clutch not disengaging with new parts except the pressure plate? I know they go bad but I though only the surface were it contacts the friction disk went bad.
Any pointers or thoughts?
Thank you for any suggestions

 

Check that you are getting the full stroke on the clutch pedal. In other words check for worn bushings in the pedal linkage and for cracking/flexing in the firewall.
Are you sure you put the new disc in the right way round?

 

I am positive that I put the clutch in the right way. I do not beleave that it could go on backwards. It only fits one way as far as I know...
I will look into the the firewall flexing and the bushings on the petal linkage though. never though of that. Thank you.

 

If you still have the old disc have a look at the splined hub and the way it sits in the disc. Look at if more of the hub extends out one side more than the other. If it does then the flatter side should go towards the flywheel.

 

I have a '86 300-6 with hydraulic clutch and have had similar problems. I had to lengthen the connecting rod between the pedal and the master cylinder. Then I had to push the connecting rod into the master cylinder a little bit to connect it to the pedal, but it took this to make mine get enough stroke to function properly. This was done to a new O'Reilly master cylinder with a new slave cylinder. I tried to stiffen my firewall at one point but that didn't help at all. Good luck.

 

I'm having the same problem with my '85 F-150. The clutch won't disengage at all. Things I've tried: gravity bleeding the cylinders, re-adjusting the bolt tension on the clutch and pressure plate, and putting extra grease on the transmission rod. I haven't tried extending the rod between the pedal and master cylinder, but I don't see how that would help. It seems like if that was the problem, then the clutch would still be disengaging a little bit, right? Let me know if you have any other ideas, and I'll try and find out what I can.

 

I really did extend the rod and it really did solve my problem when nothing else would.

 

right on, right on....I'll have to try that

 

I hope I am wrong, but it may just be that the pressure plate was your problem in the first place, and if you re-used it, you put the problem right back in, I learned the hard way that any time you go to the trouble of removing the tranny to work on the clutch, REPLACE EVERYTHING. The clutch disc, pilot bearing/bushing, release bearing and the pressure plate. I also resurface the flywheel, and flip or replace the ring gear if there is ANY sign of damage to it. There is nothing worse than having to remove all that stuff again, just because you tried to save a few bucks on parts, and didn't get the one that mattered. Good luck.

 

I’m wondering at how you pushed the rod back into the master cylinder after you
lengthen it. I tried it and I couldn’t get the rod pushed in far enough to hook it back on the clutch pedal. & how far did you extend the rod roughly? Because I bought my new master and slave at Schucks, well now O'Reilly's as well.

 

x2, new disc with the old PPlate = do it over.

 

I lengthened mine two full turns to get my pedal to start working the way I wanted. You are right about it being hard to get the rod connected to the pedal. The crazy thing about mine is the pedal free play is not consistent. Sometimes my clutch engages near the floor and sometimes it engages higher up. You may have to make several changes to your rod length to make things work. I am not sure I have mine where I want to leave it. I hope this helps.

 

UPDATE:
So I tried making the rod longer, and shorter, I got a brand new clutch kit from JEGS and installed it. I heard that the slave clyender rod has to move at least 11mm inorder to accuate the clutch, mine moves 18mm. As far as I know my tranny input shaft has minimal play (up, down, side to side play) I did not change the pilot berring 1) because I did not have the right tool to get it out with & 2) the one in there only had about 4,000 miles on it.
The bell housing is sucked up to the engine, no gaps.
I had someone tell me that the imput shaft may be binding or to far in the pilot berring therefore even if the clutch is disengaging the engine power going into the tranny is not cutoff therefore not alowing me to shift.
What I don't understand if that was the case, then why would everything be working fine before I put the clutch in and now its not working correctly.

Any Ideas?? I'm about at wits end with this clutch problem and getting tired of bumming rides off of people to get around.

 

If you push on the throwout lever so that the slave cylinder retracts as much as possible and then pull the lever until the throwout bearing contacts the clutch fingers, how far does the end of the lever move between these two points?

 

Im currently having this exact same problem in my 86 Bronco, Got it from a guy who didn't know squat about cars and who tried to replace the slave cylinder without using all the parts, Had to go to the salvage yard just to find the clip that holds the slave to the bellhousing on a 300 six. Still the clutch won't disengage, bled it several times just gotta get out and go over everything the idiot didn't do right!