Grinding shift, Now gone?

[Poorman]

New at posting but have been here reading many times, Thanks. I have an 86 f350 6.9 4 speed manual, It sits in my shop with a camper on just waiting for hunting season most of the time, I've owned it for about 30 years. It sat all winter, I usually start her up every couple months during winter. I went camping 3 weeks ago and drove about 500 miles, everything ran good. Last week I loaded up for a scouting trip 450 miles away. I got up and left at 5am, when I backed up to leave the tranny ground really hard going into reverse, I headed down the road and it ground hard and didn't like changing gears, I pulled over 3 times and re-started, each time it would grind hard going into every gear, so I decided I had to bag the trip, I turned around in a driveway and headed back home, as I shifted though the gears it went smooth so I pulled over three times on the way back home (1 mile) and went through the gears, it worked good, problem was gone, so I turned around and headed back out. I drove over 900 miles in the following 5 days with my fingers crossed and considerable anxiety with no problems. I'd like to know what was causing this so I can fix it or stop worrying about it. My suspicion is that the clutch was not releasing all the way, it's adjusted good and has plenty of fluid. Is it possible for a piece of friction material to break of the clutch and lodge between the clutch and flywheel and cause a drag until it was spit out??That's what it felt like. I checked all the bushings and adjuster rod under the dash and all was tight. Maybe the linkage to the tranny? Any Ideas????

 

[dgr]

Rusty pressure plate/clutch disc that broke loose is my WAG.

On the other hand I an Alfa that would intermittently do what you are describing. It eventually got to the point the clutch was not useable. When we disassembled it, there was a broken rivet on the pressure plate.

Try practicing shifting without a clutch. It's one of the advantages to a manual should you have a clutch failure.

 

[catbird7]

My guess, hydraulic clutch leaked a little while in storage, and after pressing and releasing the clutch pedal numerous times shifting gears you eventually pushed all the air out. Check the reservoir it may be low.

 

[Poorman]

Thanks for the input, I know the fluid was up because I checked it the night before and it hadn't moved all winter, I also checked it after this episode. I'm more inclined to go with a broken rivet getting hung up and causing drag on the clutch. The clutch does shake a lot on take off, this could be adding some stress. When I get time I'd like to replace the clutch. I'd be real curious to see what it looks like in there. When I do I'll post about it.

 

[gfemling]

An aspect to consider is dry pivot on throughout arm. My experience was hard shifting was contributed to by the pivot being bone dry and after removing and applying a smear of multipurpose grease it went away- until it developed several months later. Found a remark in Ford service manual that this is a frequently (on demand; no frequency stated) maint item. Fairly easy to remove arm but be cautious when re-installing to be sure through out bearing is correctly positioned on fork of throughout arm.

 

[gman605]

My '85 did the same thing, could hardly get it into gear at a stop after first getting in it but after 10 or 15 clutch cycles it came out of it. I kept extending the clutch pedal to clutch master cylinder linkage thinking it wasn't adjusted correctly and the problem would go away for awhile but it always came back if I let it sit. Even tried bench bleeding the master cylinder. Ended up changing the clutch master cylinder it felt like a brand new truck (relatively speaking). Just another possibility.