Actually I think the issue is more with the throwout bearing sticking. The truck is great except on very hot days. On a hot day, once the truck is fully warmed up, sometimes the throwout bearing will stick and not disengage the clutch or it will hold the clutch open and not engage the gears. If I let the truck cool down for 30 minutes or so, all is fine until it heats up again. This happened to me last summer on a hot day while I was in rush hour traffic! No fun. I finally pulled off the hwy and had a beer. 30 min. later the traffic had died down, evening cooled down and the truck drove like nothing had happened. I've put a few thousand on it since and it's been fine.

With summer coming up I need to see about fixing this. The truck has 56K miles on it and the clutch. There is no slippage and I suspect the clutch is fine.

Reading up it sounds like there is a special grease on the pilot shaft that has dried up. I'm wondering if it is possible to carefully apply the proper lubricant to the pilot shaft (via inspection port?) without pulling the whole tranny out. Has anyone run into this issue and dealt with it?

 

you will not be able to properly grease the shaft without pulling the trans. if your truck is 2wd you can get it out by yourself with very basic hand tools in less than an hour. 4x4 less than 2, i know because i had mine out twice last summer.

 

Sorry to hear that. I am not tooled up to remove, nor able to bench press a tranny. That was for my much younger years. Sounds like I'll need to hire someone to do this. What is the proper grease for the pilot shaft?

 

that is a good question my friend, i didnt grease mine when i had it out and there was no grease on it when i removed it

 

I think the bearing comes pre-lubed. Not sure with what kind of grease though. Whatever it is, 19 yrs later it's getting thin.

 

the bearing is not a serviceable component. as for the shaft i think there is a lube specified by ford to be used but i have never seen it used.

 

I'm going to have the tranny pulled with the intent of replacing the slave cylinder + bearing. If the clutch and pressure plate still look good, they will stay in. If not, the whole shebang gets an update.

 

it would be a good idea to just replace everything if you are taking it to a shop. 56k miles of wear is well into the life cycle of that clutch