[HermitJohn]

You wouldnt think a particular gear should be troublesome but it can. I helped friend put new clutch on Ford 350 with the 7.3 diesel and a 5 spd. Reverse can still be a pain. Ford didnt allow for any adjustment on rod from slave cylinder to throw out arm. You end up spending day or two trying to bleed the system to absolute perfect and then find out that after milling the flywheel you were suppose to use special shims to make up the difference. By the way the master and slave are plastic and sold as a prebled unit for some ungodly price. I ended up welding couple washers on throwout arm and got it to work but as I said reverse still occasionally causes a problem. Why in the world Ford came up with this stupid design when they had perfectly good system previously is beyond me. Gets even better, the newer Fords (and Chevies too I think) now dont even have a throw out arm, the slave cylinder is now part of the throwout bearing INSIDE the clutch housing. Must save 50cents going down the assembly line but big pain in rear for everyone dealing with it after that. I am of the opinion that modern engineers take a special course in how to make life difficult for mechanics and how to make cars unnecessarily complex and expensive for buyers/owners.

 

[HermitJohn]

Reread my post and guess I didnt make it clear that the transmission shifted fine previous to clutch job. Now it very difficult in reverse and so-so in first I think. This because the clutch now just barely disengages the transmission from the engine. Right on the edge where it works as opposed to where it doesnt. I assume as clutch plate wears it will start to work better and next clutch redo, shims will get put on back of the flywheel. You see on older hydraulic clutch systems like I had on my '60 chevy pickup, the system was designed with some built in slop and you used a linkage adjustment on rod from slave cylinder to throw out arm to take up slop and as clutch wore, you just readjusted this rod to keep same pedal height. No shims, no plastic anything, hey it just worked without headaches. Why Ford thought this was an improvement, I dont know, maybe just an improvement on profit for replacement clutch parts and labor bills.

Thinking about it, I suspect some modification of the throw out arm and making pushrod adjustible would eliminate need for shims. If it had been my truck, I would have made these and couple other modifications including using cast iron master/slave cylinder off older verhicle. Owner of truck doesnt believe in modifying things. He didnt like it that I even used the washers. Told him we could either take it apart and use shims that nobody ever mentioned and I finally found out about on ford forum on internet or he could take it to a shop in town/ Ford dealer to do this, or we could try adding couple washers that would take about 15min. More washers wouldnt help due to design of throwout arm. It just couldnt push throwout bearing into fingers of pressure plate any further unless it was redesigned.