Help, cant tell if clutch is bad or tranny is shot.

[Timo96]

First post so hopefully I'm in the correct section and thanks anyone who's reading.

I have a 96 Ford Explorer 4l v6 manual 2 door. I've always had an issue with it shifting into reverse from neutral. The gears would grind for a second and it would be hard to get it into it.Eventually it started getting worse, and is almost impossible to get into reverse. It has an extremely hard time getting into first or second, and I almost stall when I stop in gear. Today getting home from work I I had to pump the clutch a few times then use both hands to force it into just to make it home. But then when i force it into gear the car will start start accelerating by itself if I take my foot off the brake. I was stopped on a hill yesterday, and instead of my car rolling back it started rolling forward.

Do any of you guys know if it sounds like my clutch or something worse? All the shops around my town are gonna take me for my money if I don't go there knowing what it is. I had a firebird with a bad head gasket and had my shop say it was the water pump and ac compressor. I don't want to have a bad transmission and get charged for a clutch job. So any help would be appreciated if anything similar has happened to you.

 

[PopRichie77]

Sounds like the clutch is not releasing, It may be shot or just need adjusted. Driving it like this will ruin the trans, if it hasn't already.

I think you have a hydraulic clutch release, it maybe out of fluid due to a leak.

 

[RangerX]

Most likely it's the slave cylinder. If you do a search here, you'll find tons of threads talking about similar symptoms.

 

[colintrax]

Sounds like it's low on fluid and has a bad slave. Driving it like that makes me guess you're gonna need a new clutch to.