1995 f150 4.9 I6 with the Mazda 5-spd
just bought the truck about a month ago and it was in mint condition. been falling apart on me pretty quickly over the last 2 weeks. it almost left me stranded at the Walmart when the p.s.o.m went out last week, I just pulled the fuses and it was able to move again. IDK i did something to cause it, but over the last few days the shifter had been getting more and more difficult to change gears with (like there was a gate over 1st and 2nd gear that you had to force through). it finally gave out when i was out of town yesterday and would not go into gear at all and the clutch pedal was spongey. i had to get it towed back home to work on it.
i just tried bleeding the master cylinder and now the clutch pedal wont even return to me, there is zero resistance to the thing even though i drained all the air out of the system and it's full of fluid. it dosent look like there are any leaks but I also haven't looked at the slave cylinder.

i want to know what could be causing the pedal to not come back up like this, and why I can't change gears.
and if there is someone who can potentially help.

 

Shifting is difficult because the clutch isn't fully releasing. That could be due to a master cylinder problem, a slave cylinder problem, or (most likely) a pedal problem. Click each of these & read their captions:

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The more we can see about your truck, the more likely we can help you. So read this caption, follow its links, study your truck, and put ALL its details into your signature:

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You should also put your location in your profile, in case someone local can help.

 

I didn't see anything particularly wrong with the clutch linkage but you can look for yourself here ( )

I'm thinking its probably the master cylinder and that I likely just blew a seal in it or something.
when I tried to bleed the system yesterday the bleeder valve felt abnormally loose. perhaps it wasn't reinstalled correctly when the previous owner did his clutch. if you know of any way I can look at the slave cylinder without taking it off I would appreciate it.

 

UPDATE: just replace the master cylinder with a new one and went to bleed it with a self bleeder kit that we rigged up. got a bunch of air out of the system and that made it better but it only worked fully when we had the pressurizer hooked up on the master cylinder and was forcing 10 psi through the system. as soon as i bleed pressure off of the air tank the pedal was back to being spongey and not coming back up (it came up about half way this time)

 

Looks to me that you have worn bushings on your pedal box AND at the crossover lever where it attaches to the push rod. Pump the clutch pedal a few times, then disconnect the push rod from the crossover lever. Pull up on the clutch pedal. While holding up the clutch pedal, observe the relationship of the push rod loop and the cross lever pin. They should line up together. If they do not, you will have to pull the pedal box and recondition it with new bushings and possibly a new cross lever. You won't get air into the hydraulics unless the system has been opened up or the fluid had leaked out for some reason. You may have to deal with that afterwards.
When I repaired my pedal box last year, the clutch pedal was then higher than the brake pedal and the clutch worked flawlessly.