Please help. I have a 1997 Ranger 4 cyl. Manual 5 speed. Recently I changed the clutch disk, pressure plate, re-surfaced flywheel, slave cylinder, and a pre-bled master cylinder. Everything put back together and the clutch wont disengage, so I cant put the truck in gear with engine running. With engine off, I can shift to all gears. I confirmed the slave cylinder travel and it is about 5/16" which is normal compared to a video on YT which also measured the travel. I have tried bleeding it a dozen times and nothing. I know the master cyl. is completely bled since I have no pedal travel when the master is disconected from the slave. I even opted to change again the slave hoping it came bad out of the box but nothing still. I dont know what else to do. I have removed and replaced the transmission about 4 times trying to see if something else is wrong. Also, doublechecked de clutch disk no being backwards. For the bleeding process, I used gravity bleeding and have been through a lot of DOT 3 in the process.
You cannot count on gravity bleeding to get the job done. Because the slave is part of the clutch release bearing it needs -
1. Somebody pumping the clutch while you bleed off the air.
2. Using a vacuum tool (Mighty Vac) to bleed the air out.
3. Reverse bleeding where fluid is pumped through the bleeder valve back to the clutch master cylinder.
The system seems to be completely bled, but still nothing. My question is, can the new non-ajustable pressure plate be too tight that it just wont disengage. The last pressure plate was an auto-ajustable one.
No. I suspect the throw out bearing/slave cylinder combination unit was installed wrong, or the clutch disc itself was put in backward.