How do you remove a hydraulic clutch line from a manual transmission to get to the flywheel of a 1989 Ford Ranger XLT?

Answer 1

The good news is: there's a clutch tool that just pries the clutch line out of the slave cylinder. It's a flat piece of metal about 5 inches long and an inch or so wide, with a semicircular cutout at one end. You just stick the cutout between the fitting on the slave cylinder and the clutch line and pry it out. You could use a screwdriver, but I prefer the clutch tool. It's cheap and you don't have to be careful. The bad news is: if you want to get real access to your flywheel, you will have to pull the transmission and the clutch. There's no other way in there. If all you want is to see the flywheel (to check for damage like broken teeth) just pull the starter and look in the hole it came out of. If you do remove your transmission, there's more good news: The manual says you must remove your exhaust system. NOT TRUE. There's room to manuever the transmission out without doing that. You will need a transmission jack. Get one that's tall enough to reach your tranny with the front wheels jacked up (not as easy as it sounds).

On some Ford Rangers there is a white plastic ring clip that snaps around the connection flange. This is the KEY to removing the hydraulic line. You will notice on the drivers side of the transmission there are 2 lines coming from the slave cylinder (throwout bearing) One line is short and should have a rubber cap on it, this is the bleeder. The other line is your hydraulic feed line from the master cylinder. At the point where the black plastic line meets the brass or black colored cylinder/flange this is where you will see the plastic ring clip. If it is missing you need to get one on there. What you need to do is get a small screw driver and working from one side to the next, push that plastic clip into the cylinder housing until you can no longer see it. What this will do is release the metal tangs inside which hold the line into the housing. It's very simple and does not require much force to do so. Once the clip is pushed inside, the line will start to slide out. Slowly and gently wiggle the line out of the housing. Do NOT pry on it, as it will break.