The fluid cannot get into the transmission. That's the bell housing. It should also have a vent hole in the bottom, if you didn't have any fluid on your floor yours was plugged up.

 

UPDATE

Ok, I replaced the clutch/slave cylinder/trans fluid/pilot bearing on Mon/Tue.

The fluid was a dark, dark red, almost brown. Ya, not good. There was some blackish/grayish sludge on the magnet of the drain plug, but only a few metal shavings (what I would consider fairly normal for a trans with 115k on it).

I'm guessing the clutch was a Ford replacement because it was a LuK, (according to the pressure plate) but it looked pretty darn new. Wasn't used much at all. And I could tell someone had the trans out before.

However, the flywheel looked like crap. Slight gouges in it in certain spots and was burned all over. Not good. So, I had it turned, of course. They said the flywheel looked like this < from outside in. So the inside was thinner than the outside was. It wasn't level. I figured, "Bingo!" there's probably my clutch disengagement issue.

So, I put everything back together and bled the clutch, of course. Its better, but not great. Maybe I'm expecting too much out of a trans with 115k on it.

Admittedly, the clutch feel & clutch release point are MUCH better on this clutch. I'd say it releases midway instead of at the top. It also grabs much better when being released, so it feels more solid. It doesn't grind like it did before (going into first and possibly third), but is still "hesitant" to go into first gear. I mean, it's not major, but you still have to push it past a certain hesitation point to get it into gear (in first only).

But it does work better and I've been driving it a day or two now. I don't think they ever touched the flywheel or the fluid in the trans when they changed the clutch. I put Valvoline Mercon V in it because that's all the parts store had (didn't have Mobil 1 ATF) and I didn't have time to run around to 3 different stores to get all this stuff. I also refilled and bled the system with DOT4 brake fluid.

So, I guess we'll see how it goes from here. Maybe the synchros in first and third are still toast but the new fluid is helping, I don't know.

Oh, and as a side note, I HAD to turn the trans 90* when taking it out or putting it in if you leave the factory exhaust intact (per the service manual instructions). Boy was that ever fun putting it back up there like that! You had to turn the trans 90* so the shifter boss wouldn't hit the top of the tunnel, yet you couldn't go forward enough to drop the tail shaft past the exhaust, so you had to turn it 90*, push it back further onto the exhaust enough so that the bellhousing would clear the pressure plate, then lower the front past it and then pull it forward off of the exhaust to clear the tail shaft to lower it completely. Ohhhh, what a joy. There was a lot of swearing when I was trying to put the trans back in like that (tail shaft first onto the exhaust and then raise the front).

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their help and info. Much appreciated. I guess I'll have to look into a rebuilt trans at some point.

Happy Holidays!
Mat

 

Glad to see it is back up and running. The shop manual has you unhook the mounts after the muffler on the exhaust and push it down till it touches the rear axle for clearance. Did you still need to turn it 90° after doing that? Just asking for research purposes.

 

Yup and I unhooked 4 rubber mounts, (one on the very tail pipe, two on the muffler itself and one before the muffler) while the manual only calls for unhooking 3 and it was laying on the axle, no doubt about it. I made it go as low as it could and lowered the engine/trans till it stopped moving down. I still had to turn it 90* to push it back over the crossover pipe to remove it.

Of course, if I unhooked the exhaust from the manifold and either took it out or put it to the shop floor, then I wouldn't have had to do that and could have lowered the trans straight down. But when I did that with my Cobra, there were issues hooking the exhaust back up to the manifold and I actually had to take it to a shop to get it hooked back up properly because a stud turned out and wouldn't reseal the exhaust properly and you couldn't get in there to fix it. I didn't want to do that again and the manual didn't say I had to unhook it, just drop it down.

I'll bet the Ford dealers probably remove the exhaust. Or, if you run true dual exhaust on your truck, then it would probably miss the trans all together as well (unless you run a crossover/H pipe, but then I would put in a flange to have it where you can unhook it separately).

 

Did you remove the lower shift lever? The one bolted to the transmission shift cover with 3 bolts?

 

Ya, I actually had to unbolt it (3 torx bit bolts) to get the entire shifter itself out. I couldn't figure out how the hell to get the bolt (really a threaded shaft w/a jamnut) out that secures the shifter to the shaft, so that was the only way I could get the shifter out.

I loosened the locknut, but couldn't figure out how to get the threaded shaft out and someone before me screwed up the threads on one end (the end w/the nut), so I even tried to grab it with vice grips and couldn't get the darn threaded shaft to move what so ever.

So, the only way I could take out the shifter, luckily, was to take out those three small bolts and remove the entire shifter assy from the trans itself. Then I just stuffed a clean rag into that opening so it wouldn't get dirt/crap in it during the uninstall/reinstall.

So, if anyone has any suggestions on how to get that threaded shaft out, I would appreciate it. I'll replace it with a damn bolt. Seems stupid as hell to have a shaft with a jamnut on it. Makes no sense to me.

 

Chase the threads so the nut comes off then install the nut on the other end and tighten it. This will pull the bolt out.

 

I dropped my tranny without turning it at all, I even left the lower shifter on. And I left my exhaust completely together and hanging how it always is. Where are you located?

 

You've gotta be $h!tting me?! LOL I had a feeling it was something like that, but I tried to tighten the nut from the wrong side. The threads are pretty messed up, but I'll try and remove the nut and see if it helps recut the threads enough to remove the threaded shaft. Thanks for the info. I'll try that out this weekend to see if I can get it to work.

Why didn't they just use a darn bolt with Loctite on it?

FiveOMerc - I'm in Nevada. Not sure if that would make a difference or not. Not sure where the veh originally came from either, but I bought it here. But I know for a fact that the exhaust was sitting on the axle.

However, now that I'm thinking about it, I had my jackstands under the axle and the A arms and not on the frame itself, so that the suspension hung down. So, maybe if you did that instead of using the axle like I did, that might have let the axle hang lower and let the exhaust go lower than mine did. That's the only difference I can think of.

 

With the truck sitting on a lift in a shop the suspension hangs so maybe you are on to something.

 

Very true...never thought about that. Normally lifts go by the frame (well, unless it's a "drive on" type lift), so it would make sense that the exhaust would probably go low enough to clear the tail shaft of the trans. It wasn't by too much (maybe a couple of inches, give or take) that the trans tail shaft wouldn't clear the exhaust crossover pipe.

I'll have to remember that for next time (which I pray is a long time from now. ) and will jack it up and put jackstands under the frame instead. I didn't even think of that when doing the work initially.

 

I had my truck just sitting on the ground. Not jacked up or anything. I was just gonna say I don't know if there is a difference between your transmission and my 97 but I am in the process of putting a ZF6 in my truck so I won't be needing my 5 speed anymore. I live about 3 hours west of reno.