Hello, been trolling the different forums and googling a lot, looking to get some help with my 97 ford ranger XL 2.3 L manual transmission.

This started a couple of weeks ago, whenever I started my truck and went to shift it into reverse the gears would grind. I quickly switched the gears to the other gears and tried reverse again, and this would usually do the trick.
Soon it became impossible to get it into reverse without grinding, so i changed my driving habits and let my truck roll into my driveway into reverse so i could avoid reverse all together, however, changing gears entirely while the truck was on
and at a stop (stand-still) became extremely difficult. Usually while the truck is in motion, i can change gears, however, i've stopped using the truck in order to prevent any further damange.

I've changed the transmission fluid (probably hadn't done that in forever), and now starting to look at hydraulic fluid / bleeding.

Any suggestions or how-to articles that someone can point me to ?

 

Welcome to the forum

Your clutch is not fully disengaging engine from transmission

You have a hydraulic clutch system, all Rangers did
In the engine bay there is a Clutch Reservoir, white with black cap, drivers side firewall
Take the cap off, there should be a Black "cup" inside, pull it out, its an air dam, there should be Brake Fluid under the "cup", if not system has run dry so clutch can not work very well

You are going to Gravity Bleed the system regardless, so have some Brake Fluid, DOT 3, on hand
With fluid added to reservoir and cap still off, go under the truck with 5/16" and 3.8" box end wrench, and a pan to catch brake fluid in
You will see the hose for the clutch slave that goes into the bell housing, just above it is the Bleeder Valve, see which wrench fits it
Put the pan down under it, open the Valve and fluid should start dripping out, along with any air, air causes the issue you describe
You can open the valve a little more, maybe let it Gravity Bleed for 10 seconds or so, then close the valve
Go back up to the reservoir and make sure it's not dry
Now start the engine and see if it can shift into 1st and reverse while stopped

If so put "cup" back in the reservoir and cap back on, assuming reservoir was "topped up"
If not then there is still air in the system so try the Gravity bleeding again

Heads up, Brake Fluid is VERY bad for Paint, so be careful of where you put parts that have brake fluid on them

 

So i tried bleeding it by loosing the valve, it started to drip, but not alot. I wasn't sure how much i needed to turn it, i assumed very little, however, after some back and forth of pumping the clutch, and opening and closing the valve and filling the cup, it eventually pumped out some fluid. After some time I decided to give it a go and it's working ALOT better, yet still not perfect. While engine was off i tried switching gears, and noticed it wasn't as smooth (some rattling ). When i turned on the engine, it worked the same, (no longer difficult in changing gears, even went into reverse smoothly). Did a test drive, and occasionaly had some difficulty changing gears. Also a couple of times switching to reverse i heard the typical grind. Going to trying bleeding and filling some more.

Couple of questions.
1). how much should i fill the reservoir? it says fill to the 'step', dont know what this means and dont see a line.
2). There is another reservoir (i guess this is the master cylinder / brake booster?). The fluid level there is pretty low and dirty black. Should i add some here?

 

Yes, brake Master should be full add some fluid, and it should be the same color as the new fluid so you may need some servicing, fluid change

Clutch Reservoir, does it have the black cup inside?
If not then 1/2 way full is fine
1/4 full if you are putting the "cup" back in

You open the bleeder until fluid is flowing out, its just gravity pulling the fluid down from the reservoir, i.e. water runs downhill, so does brake fluid
There is no pressure in the system until clutch pedal is pushed down
So open it more that just a drip


Check the fluid in the transmission, its ATF, Mercon V, it can be changed only holds 2.5 Quarts
Yes, Automatic transmission fluid in a Manual Transmission

 

Thanks Ron. Here I am 5 months later. I had followed your advice and bled it and it seemed to work like a charm. Now sometime later, seeing slightly different issues.
Reverse is starting to grind a bit again, not really having a problem changing gears otherwise. Main new issue now is acceleration and loud noises. When i drive the car , especially in higher gears (like going up hill)
I push the pedal down to get some more acceleration and truck seems to loudly rev up (i'm guessing in rpms, but i have no meter). After this loud humming, it eventually takes and starts to accelerate.
Had a couple other people drive it and they noticed it immediately, I've always slowly accelerated .
1 of the friends say it might be disc slipping.

Recalling what i did before, i changed transmission fluid and bled clutch. While i can do clutch again, i'm wondering if when i changed transmission fluid if i either under or over filled it. I tightened the bottom bolt very hard, but i always see some of the new fluid on the side of it (as if there was a leak)
Thoughts? Been looking for any info on dipstick or way to determine fluid level on manual transmission. Thanks again.

 

Your manual transmission has a drain bolt and a fill bolt. You fill it until it barely starts to run out of the fill hole. I'm actually researching now for type of Mercon to go in our 3.0L V6 but 5 speed manual transmission. I drained the fluid as we needed to pull transmission as part of engine change. We are going back together with it now.