Higher mileage (50k+ miles) manual cars, check your clutch pedals

[FBO5.0]

He decided to take it to Ford anyways.

He replaced just the Clutch Master Cylinder. His pedal assembly didn't have any cracks from what I was told.

Factory clutch still, 75,xxx miles on odo.

Nothing on floor board but I want to say on the assembly had some fluid. Whenever you would pump the pedal you could hear like an air woosh sound coming from that area. If that makes sense, lol.

Don't believe so, Didn't look before dropping the car off.

Brake lights still work

Didn't try cruise control but was able to drive 25 miles to a Ford Dealership. Had to lift up on the clutch pedal every time to go shift to next gear. When you are pumping the clutch pedal, it will act like it's getting hard to push again but as soon as you quit pumping it goes back to the floor.

Well that sounds like he was right thinking the clutch master was a problem based on what you said about it. I'm thinking he might need to bleed the clutch. There's a tool at harbor freight called a mighty Vac. Get one. That and a rubber sink stopper. Here's a video of a guy using that setup.
Sounds like he has a big issue with air being trapped. I've never known that to cause a wrench light to appear, but that's what the mechanical issue sounds like to me. That, or he has a leak somewhere. Running the Ford clutch bleeding process will tell you of there is a leak somewhere.

I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner on this.

The Ford recommended way of bleeding the clutch is to hold vacuum of -21 psi for one minute, then release. Put the lid back on the reservoir, pump pedal 12 times and repeat this process three or 4 times. If you don't maintain vacuum, it means there's a leak. It's easy, but you need the simple tools to do it.

Sponsored

 

[XSlashDashX]

All good! Yeah, sounds like air still in system in my opinion but he decided to just take it to Ford anyways. Now, I know what to do when I have to pull my Master Cylinder/Pedal Assembly

 

[LunarS550]

Another one bites the dust...
Not as bad as OP’s but glad I addressed it before getting any worse.
Kicking myself in the ass for not beefing up the other side after seeing how bad yours was.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Another one bites the dust...
Not as bad as OP’s but glad I addressed it before getting any worse.
Kicking myself in the ass for not beefing up the other side after seeing how bad yours was.

Damn, were those things welded up by some High School Auto Shop class for cheap off the books labor? Those welds are horrendous...

That can't possibly be the work of BOT Welders....

 

[ICU812]

What the O/P forgets is the metric of Ford knowing the % of manual shifted units that will have been wrapped around a tree well before the pedal mount/pivot failure, the % that might fail under warranty, and the biggie, the need for it to fail in a wreck for driver leg safety.
This part is most likely robot welded, they saved nothing not welding 180* or 360*, it was not fully welded most likely to cause it to fail in a crash,designed with that in mind.

 

[LunarS550]

Damn, were those things welded up by some High School Auto Shop class for cheap off the books labor? Those welds are horrendous...

That can't possibly be the work of BOT Welders....

LOL I was waiting for it. I’d say even less experience than some High School Auto Shop class and cheaper than off the books labor, that is the fine work of myself with an at-home welder. Clearly not my profession, it is better than the peanut that came from the factory however.

 

[K-Roll302]

Mine failed today on the freeway and intermittently prevented me from changing gear all the way home from work and to the dealer. Mine is just under 60k miles, and I had intermittent creaking sounds that I thought were coming from my seat, as the changing my position seemed to correspond with it going away.

I would LOVE for warranty to cover this, won't know until tomorrow.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Mine failed today on the freeway and intermittently prevented me from changing gear all the way home from work and to the dealer. Mine is just under 60k miles, and I had intermittent creaking sounds that I thought were coming from my seat, as the changing my position seemed to correspond with it going away.

I would LOVE for warranty to cover this, won't know until tomorrow.

That’s unfortunate BS right there…. No reason at all that a part such as that pedal box should be failing. It’s clearly a manufacturing defect AND to have a failure at highway speed is dangerous.

I’d recommend anyone who has had that type of failure to report it to the NHTSA.

If you can’t get warranty approved, call the Ford 800# and request a Case be opened because that pedal box should not be failing at all - and it shouldn’t be money out of your pocket.

 

[K-Roll302]

It wasn't covered by any warranty, so I pulled the assembly (10/10 it was the worst thing I've done on an S550), and had it welded and reinforced. Ordered the Steeda clutch line since I'm already in there and I'm waiting for that before I put it all back together.

 

[K-Roll302]

Got the assembly back in with some good friends last night. It actually went in easier than taking it out. All that’s left is the clutch line, finding the other half of my assist spring perch, and bleeding it and we should be good to go!

Total time just doing disassembly and reassembly was about six hours.

 

[bootlegger]

This thread has me very worried. At around 11k miles, my pedal started creaking annoyingly. I thought it may be the clutch assist spring assembly, so I removed it. I thought this fixed the issue, but heard a creak a few days later. I got up under there and lubed everything, but creaking remained. Now I am guessing I will see a crack when I get up in there. This could explain why I occasionally grind going into second when I swear the clutch is all the way in. Really pisses me off. Anyone know what this costs to fix at ford?
Btw, if mine is cracked, that kills the idea that it is a lack of assist spring or mod to a Steeda spring that causes the issue. It would also kill the idea that it happens at higher mileage.

 

[Toretto]

This happened to my '08 V6 after about 70,000km....got it towed to a dealership and told them that this should not have happened, and while I understand i'm out of full warranty, this is something Ford should honor as it is a safety issue. The whole replacement costed about $1000CAD if i recall, and they paid for 75% of it so $250 out of my own pocket.

I can't believe this is still happening, and hopefully to those unfortunate ones who experiences this issue, that they would file a case with Ford.

 

[bootlegger]

Update:
Got up under there with mirrors and did not see any cracks. I also do not have side to side play in the pedal. I went ahead and reinstalled the spring, in case I need to take it to the stealership. It definitely creaks a lot, and it sounds like it is coming from the area where the shaft goes through the firewall. No idea how to stop the annoying sound, but at least I don’t have to worry about the pedal giving out for now.

 

[Shifting_Gears]

Mine creaked for a while and then stopped. No change in pedal feel.

 

[Tarik76]

Some of you who know me personally may have seen this already, but wanted to share something in order to maybe help some of you proactively.

On Jan 10th, I had just started a drive to get some coffee when I noticed a very odd behavior from my clutch pedal. It was getting stopped about halfway down the travel and would only go all the way down if I pushed the pedal inboard and down simultaneously. After I kind of limped home carefully, I inspected the pedal, and found that it would move laterally about 2.5-3" and that there were obvious cracks at the pedal pivot. I ordered a replacement set of pedals. I replaced them just over a week later, which is a truly AWFUL job.

Here are my findings about the pedal after removing the old one:

1. Due to how drastically different the pedal feel, engagement smoothness became after the replacement, I can say that my original pedal had failed at some level more than 2 years ago. This was just the final catastrophic break. The cracked pivot/bad weld created a less consistent pedal that did not actually translate all the foot motion into clutch MC depression. It happened so slowly over time that I did not notice it progressively worsening, much like a frog in boiling water.

2. This is bad design engineering. The pivot only had 90 deg (of 360) welded on either side, and on mine, this was a clearly bad weld that had poor penetration into the base metal. What this shows is not just a bad weld, but a design incapable of being robust to manufacturing variability. A design that had the weld 360 deg around or even 180 deg around would likely have had enough margin by design to prevent this type of failure. Once the weld let go, it shifted more load to the other side, cracking the other weld.

3. Ford did this to save a few cents on a pedal. Anyone who's spent time working at/with Ford knows how much of their cars are supplier-led design, with the responsible component engineers nodding like bobbing heads. This example represents a total failure of the dFMEA process that is used in automotive product development to ensure quality and safety. A few cents per car was saved on a part that is critical and required for operation of the vehicle. That is not an acceptable decision.

4. I'm definitely not the only one. In my local area, I've been able to find 3 other people with similar failures. The catastrophic failure occurred at 90k miles. The cold weld likely broke at something like 65k miles. It's hard to know for sure. A friend of mine had his failure at 40k miles.

Pictures below.

Yep same thing happened on my 17 GT. Took the assembly out (pain in the arse) and had the clutch and brake pedal welded all the way around.

Sponsored