5.0halfton

Ive been bleeding mine through the slave in the tranny. Curious How do you do it?

Nothin but a Ford

I use a hand pump that pushes the fluid up from the bleeder on the slave up through the master cylinder. Air naturally rises right, plus you can do it alone. I have never actually bled a concentric slave before, but I assume it would work the same. My pump is an old thing that my father had for 40 years. It screws into a big can of brake fluid, you pull up on the handle to fill it, and push back down to send the fluid into the slave through the bleeder. Works on brakes if you are alone as well. I looked it up, and I see pumps that suck the fluid out the bleeder, and pumps that pressurize the master cylinder, but nothing like what I have. Perhaps it is home made. All I know is that it works.
Does it go into 1st hard while you are parked, or just on the move? If it's hard going in parked, try pumping the clutch a couple of times. If it helps, it's probably air. If it only happens in motion, try double clutching, a worn syncronizer will make it hard to get into gear, as well as fly out of gear. I'm not familiar with a ford transmission, but some gears share the same syncronizer. A heavy truck has no syncronizer, so you have to double clutch in order to shift. Depress the clutch once, but only enough to ease the drive line pressure, and take it out of gear. Release the clutch in order to get gears turning the right rpm again. Clutch again to release the pressure, and slide into next gear. If your transmission is worn, this should work, and give you an idea where to start. To me, now that I think about it, air would make it hard to go into any gear, including reverse.

sylver91

You guys are bleeding the clutch the hard way. All I need is a 8mm wrench to bleed in in 5 min on my own. Fill the reservoir, open the bleeder, let it gravity bleed till ALL off the air bubbles come out, even if you think they aren't any left. Close the bleeder and re-fill the reservoir. Pump the pedal a few times and you should very quickly get a strong pedal. If not keep pumping quickly going to the floor and let the pedal rise up a bit each time its get firmer.

Nothin but a Ford

Gravity bleeding is fine if you have the time, or if your line has no loops or low points in it. My grader at work has 7 feet of line from master cylinder to slave, and more ups and downs than New Brunswick roads in the spring. I'm not commenting to condemn anyone's techniques, I am just saying what I do or have done. The thing I like about these forums is that they are a great place to learn, and share knowledge. I use them for my Mustang, my lawn mower, snow blower, and my old Ferguson tractor.