12valve@heart

Help me out here guys and gals. First of all, I'm helping my mechanically inexperienced friend on his '93 Ford Ranger 4x4 4.0L gasser 5-spd. It's not mine and I don't really have time to be working on it but sometimes those of us who can (or think we can) have to help those who can't. I'll try to keep this short but I need ideas or confirmation that I'm on the right track.

Background - He said that when he went to shut it off, the clutch did not disengage when he hit the pedal. I checked - major grinding trying to get into any gear. Looked underneath and Hyd. slave cylinder that slips over the trans. input shaft moved the pressure plate some but not enough. Tried to bleed the system to see if any air had gotten in. Fluid will run thru (gravity bleed) but since I opened the bleeder on the clutch slave, the slave won't move at all now and I've lost all pedal. Yesterday as a last ditch effort, I replaced the clutch master cylinder but I still get the same results, no pedal pressure and no clutch slave movement but the system will gravity bleed fine. The old clutch master will build pressure if I put my thumb over the outlet.

It makes no sense to me why the clutch slave would work to a limited extent before but after I bled it, wouldn't work at all. Has anyone dealt with this type of system? I'm afraid we're going to have to pull transmission and transfer case tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

infidel

I ran into the same problem after replacing the slave on an '80s Ranger. Factory service manual said to let it sit and the air will naturally migrate into the master reservoir. This didn't work for me.
Finally I consulted my brake expert friend who told me to pump brake fluid into the slave bleeder screw. Worked perfect.

One thing you may want to consider that might be the real problem is a seized throwout bearing, gives the same symptoms, a clutch that doesn't disengage.

12valve@heart

Well, I spent some time last week working on this again and determined that the morons that designed the clutch master cylinder made it virtually impossible to bleed completely. After spending some time searching on the Ford site, I finally determined that I had to remove the clutch master cylinder, bring it back into the engine compartment, turn it upside down , and manually bleed it in this postion. Amazing how much air was trapped in there. Unfortunately it didn't solve the problem so we pulled the transmission this evening and found that the clutch facing on the pressure plate side had come loose and jammed between the rivets on the clutch and the outer edge of the pressure plate so there was no way that the clutch could possibly disengage. Guess we'll get the synchros checked and the flywheel surfaced this week and try to put it back together next Friday.