Sold my 2001 CTD to my brother at 78,000 miles. Now he has 122,000 miles and a about 10 days ago the truck developed a problem with disengaging the clutch. When he pushed the pedal in, the clutch would not disengage. He took it to the dealer and they said it was a failed slave cylinder. Over $500 later he had his truck back. It worked fine for about a week. Now he is having a similiar problem. He can push the clutch to the floor and start the truck. It then starts to move forward while the pedal is still pushed in. Again he took it to the dealer for them to fix their problem. They now claim that it is the clutch plate that needs replacing. He doesn't tow anything regular and neither of us think he needs a new clutch plate. He asked them to take a look at the cylinder and maybe it was defective. They agreed to look at it again and claimed to have put a new cylinder in it but the result was the same. They want to charge him $1400+ for the new clutch work.

Doesn't it sound like maybe the cylinder isn't bled or may actually be bad? He is taking it to a different dealer that he trusts more and will let me know.

Any ideas???

 

I had the same issue and in my case it was the pilot bearing had dried up and the needles were then binding on the input shaft which makes it the same as the clutch being engaged whether you are pushing on the pedal or not. I know a few others had the same problem here also. I was also first thinking clutch hydraulics, glad I got advice here and never spent all the money and time chasing that avenue.

 

How much did it cost to have the pilot bearing replaced? How much time does this take?

 

Pilot bearing is a good possibilty but being that it has come and gone and back again I think another possibilty is that one of the vibration dampener springs in the clutch disc has become dislodged and depending on where it is sitting at a particular time, jams the pressure plate/disc assy, pedal effort is normal but sometimes either the clutch won't release at all or only partially releases. I have seen this on several makes of vehicles. I think it is reasonable to say the dealer is right that the disc is bad and needs a new clutch assy but it doesn't hurt to get the dealer to check their work and make sure. If they say it is ok I would be tempted to see if they would pay for the clutch hydraulics they put in that didn't really fix anything (assuming it is the same problem as before). If it is the pilot bearing it would probably still be wise to replace the clutch anyways as the tranny and clutch assy has to come out to do the pilot bearing anyways so what not start fresh with everything new. Pilot bearing time should be the same as clutch replacement time (not sure on our trucks what it is).

 

That's right. The tranny has to come down no matter what to see what's wrong and then may as well just do everything.