On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 08:03:20 -0600, rbowman wrote:

Not particularly. Sometimes there is a shield on the bottom of the
bellhousing that you can remove. You can't really see much but if a lot
of dust and pieces of lining are present it isn't good news.

There *is* a semicircular shield plate on the bell housing.
I don't know what is behind it though.

What are the symptoms?
Two different things, one of which was fixed yesterday:
1. The clutch pedal feels like crap (more about that below)
2. It wouldn't shift into gear when cold.

The cold-shift issue somehow, magically, went away when I replaced the
original fluid yesterday with Red Line MT-90 "miracle fluid". I didn't
believe in the miracle fluid, but the driver (who isn't me) reported that
it works just fine now for shifting into gear when cold. Huh? How can that
be? What on earth is so magical about that fluid that it makes shifting
into gear when cold possible when the only thing that changed was the
fluid?

I don't understand it but I'm not complaining.

Is it slipping when you floor the engine at 50 mph or so?

There is no indication of slipping of the clutch.
I can stall the engine easily when I put it in the wrong gear.
I can slip the clutch to get it to go in the wrong gear.
I can start on a hill in the right gear.

So there is no indication that the clutch itself is slipping.
But ...

The pedal feels like crap.

Or just hard to engage and shift.

It was impossible to engage just two days ago. For months, the wife has
been complaining (it's actually her car) that it wouldn't go into gear. So
she shifted into reverse to get out of the garage. Then she turned the
engine off and back on. Then she shifted into first to make her K turn.
Then she turned the engine off and back on. Then she repeated this for as
long as it took her (something like five more steps than it takes me) to
complete her K turn and be on her way.

Yesterday and today, she was able to shift into the first and reverse gears
without turning off the engine! Can a simple oil change do that?

I don't understand it. I really don't.

BTW, I don't know if turning the engine off was necessary. I suspect not. I
suspect she could have gotten it into neutral and just activated the clutch
pedal a few times. The problem was it wouldn't get OUT of gear to go into
neutral. So she shut the engine down. When I tried it, I just held the
brake and pressed the clutch pedal a few times so I think the engine didn't
need to be turned off as I see nothing that turning off the engine should
do to the transmission. Do you?


My F150 had a appetite for
throwout bearings that gave the latter symptoms. They were good for
about 75k miles. By the time you're to the throwout you're almost to the
clutch do the last time around I replaced it and the pressure plate. I
think it was about $50 for both. Neither were in bad shape but while
you're there it's not much more work.

This is my problem.
I know *nothing* about "forks" and "throwout bearings" and "pilot bearings"
etc.

Sure I watched that great video on how transmissions work but that doesn't
give me any *practical* knowledge about how to diagnose why the clutch
pedal feels like crap.

It's so hard to explain that even when I try, it's not the same as feeling
it.

When I step on the pedal, and then release it while in gear, it just
doesn't feel right.

The pedal goes down ok, but then when I lift it up, the first couple of
inches are like floating in air, while the next inch it seems to fully
engage, where the next four or five inches of release travel is wasted as
the clutch is already engaged.

Assume the whole pedal travel is, oh I don't know, let's say 12 inches.
The engagement travel is something like an inch it seems.
The rest of the 11 inches aren't doing anything.

Does that make any sense?