Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2025
- Messages
- 55
- Points
- 101
- City
- Pendleton
- State - Country
- SC - USA
- Vehicle Year
- 2008
- Vehicle
- Ford Ranger
- Drive
- 2WD
- Engine
- 2.3 (4 Cylinder)
- Transmission
- Manual
- Total Lift
- 0
- Total Drop
- 0
- Tire Size
- 235/70 R15
My rig currently has 166K (mi) on the odo. It was a work truck at one point (hence my username). I can tell because there are still marks from the rack that was installed a while ago. I'm supposedly the 3rd owner. When I bought the truck the previous owner told me explicitly that the clutch master cylinder had been replaced, with a receipt for the work performed. Shame on me for not checking the work that was performed by Schrödinger's mechanic. The damn thing leaks - a lot, it would seem.
So this means that I have a truck of questionable history, with documented "repairs" that very likely could have been fine at some point but recently failed (I have only had this truck two and a half months), and some strange noises.
Obviously the master cylinder has failed to function very well, so there's possibly air in the system. The clutch feels fine, but I'm used to sports car clutches. It could be utter feces. When I bought the truck it was warm outside, and the test drive was great. It shifted just fine and didn't make any funky noises. There was a top end shudder in the front end, but that's just 20+-year-old rubber doing what it does best: nothing, so I gave the man over 600,000 discontinued American coins, he gave me a signature on the back of a document that says I did not steal the vehicle, and I drove the truck home.
Then, the temps started falling. South Carolina had one of the coldest stints on record for this time of year, and the disguise wore off. It started with a little bit of what I thought was a dragging noise. I figured that I had a brake pad dragging, because that's what it sounded like as I drove from the parking spot of my human box to the end of the Lot of Parking before turning onto the road and (eventually) accelerating to Ludicrous Speed, or 55 MPH for those of you who'd have me arrested for endangering the public.
I started looking for a good set of pads, fluid... I was, and am stil going to replace all the fluids in the truck with high quality, synthetic fluids...
Fine. The sound got more intense, and then I realized that that dragging sound was coming from the transmission if it was in 2nd gear, which makes sense because that's the gear I used to get out of the complex. Then, I noticed 5th was doing that, too.
The clutch might not always be fully anything - disengaged, engaged - and it definitely doesn't like to engage first.
Is this all clutch, master and slave issues? I'm not looking at a rebuild yet, I hope. I need it to be a truck for a while longer.
So this means that I have a truck of questionable history, with documented "repairs" that very likely could have been fine at some point but recently failed (I have only had this truck two and a half months), and some strange noises.
Obviously the master cylinder has failed to function very well, so there's possibly air in the system. The clutch feels fine, but I'm used to sports car clutches. It could be utter feces. When I bought the truck it was warm outside, and the test drive was great. It shifted just fine and didn't make any funky noises. There was a top end shudder in the front end, but that's just 20+-year-old rubber doing what it does best: nothing, so I gave the man over 600,000 discontinued American coins, he gave me a signature on the back of a document that says I did not steal the vehicle, and I drove the truck home.
Then, the temps started falling. South Carolina had one of the coldest stints on record for this time of year, and the disguise wore off. It started with a little bit of what I thought was a dragging noise. I figured that I had a brake pad dragging, because that's what it sounded like as I drove from the parking spot of my human box to the end of the Lot of Parking before turning onto the road and (eventually) accelerating to Ludicrous Speed, or 55 MPH for those of you who'd have me arrested for endangering the public.
I started looking for a good set of pads, fluid... I was, and am stil going to replace all the fluids in the truck with high quality, synthetic fluids...
Fine. The sound got more intense, and then I realized that that dragging sound was coming from the transmission if it was in 2nd gear, which makes sense because that's the gear I used to get out of the complex. Then, I noticed 5th was doing that, too.
The clutch might not always be fully anything - disengaged, engaged - and it definitely doesn't like to engage first.
Is this all clutch, master and slave issues? I'm not looking at a rebuild yet, I hope. I need it to be a truck for a while longer.
