A few days ago I noticed a sort of mild dead pedal syndrome. I thought it might be my imagination. I have a very small transmission leak and was a quart low according to the mechanic. I expected that to solve the problem but no. Today while pulling an empty water tank she had no power. I had to over reve up the engine just to go up an incline. In other words the amount of pressure on the gas peddle isn't getting the truck to move as it did last week. Where do I start?

 

any odd smells or noises?

 

Sounds like the clutch is toast.

 

As I was hooking up to the water tank flatbed on a small incline, I smelled a slight burning and after delivery of the water tank thought I heard a rumbling from front right. The truck shifted through all gears and backed up during the delivery. I didn't drive her today - just depressed I think, me not the truck. I will see if she moves in the am. If it's the clutch, what else should I be replacing at the same time?

 

I would suggest the slave cylinder but for sure the throw out bearing. Also have the flywheel machined or replace it with a new clutch.

I used my old throw out bearing once and a year later had a catastrophic failure to the clutch slave.

 

At this point I am thinking this is a clutch issue not transmission. It may change because I may not be giving a good description of the symtoms. I have a former mechanic coming to drive it and we'll see what he says.

 

I have a backyard mechanic who drove my truck. The clutch was slipping. He crawled under and found oil and thick fibris grease all over the clutch plate. Tomorrow he is going to check the master cylinder, pull the transmission, replace the clutch, slave cylinder/throw out bearing and see how the flywheel looks. He is going to replace seals to hopefully stop this from happening again. He thinks someone may have greased the area by mistake, not coming up with a reason why it would be in there.

I have no idea what transmission I have but I believe it does not use synthetic fluids. Am I correct? He will drain the fluid and replace... do I use synthetic or stay with the regular transmission fluid? What about Lucas "wear reducing" additives. Are they helpful?

I don't know this mechanic, but he came recommended. I trust you guys more.
Any other suggestions would be VERY much appreciated. We start at 6 in the morning.

 

I used a "synthetic blend" ATF for my 5 speed and haven't had any problems in the past few months and thousands of KM's. Mercon V will be your main ingredient that you want in your tranny

 

Spent several hours working on the truck. It is mainly me and the literal "shade tree mechanic" doing the job. I am the gofer but am learning why I don't want to be a mechanic. No lift and pneumatic tools are difficult. Every bolt has never seen a wrench. As was stated earlier, the bell housing was full of grease. The clutch plate is thin and well worn, grooves in the pressure plate and the flywheel needs resurfacing. Can't find anyone to do it on a holiday so the job won't be finished until Tues./Wed. The only excuse for the grease in the bell housing must be to shut the clutch up before it was sold at auction to the old man I got it from. My mechanic said the clutch had to be screaming. The old man drove it less than 2000 miles in the 6 years he had it and I've been driving it for 7 months. It's never made a sound. Tomorrow we'll be cleaning the transmission, checking the rear end. Fun stuff.

 

Everything I need is ready to pick up at Auto Zone. I'm going with the reccommended Mercon transmission fluid as Skidrow mentioned. So far the transmission has performed as it should so we're just cleaning it, replacing the rear seal and changing out the fluid. IF YOU THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD DO REGARDING THE TRANSMISSION, NOW IS THE TIME TO CHIME IN. Thank you for the help.

I need help on finding a small part. It might be called something like slave spindle push rod retaining clip. It is missing and I don't know what it looks like to rummage around and find something close.