I'm green as a gourd so any help will be appreciated. The clutch on this truck has been very stiff,catching, and generally impossible to disengage smoothly. We're loading hoppers and it requires fine movements not jerking around. 1st mech. on monday said it needed adjusting so he adjusted it. No change. 2nd mechanic on tuesday said it needed greasing. The truck has 1 of them automatic greasers. He pulled the fitting on the linkage bushing and it was dry so we inserted zerk and greased manually. We also greased the shaft and throwout bearing. This helped. However I have noticed that the clutch linkage doesn't kick the pedal out to it's full throw. There's about 1 1/2 inches of free play but you have to reach your toe under it and pull it up. Then it will stay otherwise no free play. I told the boss I thought this would wear the clutch disc constantly. My question is whether a linkage adjustment will fix this?? If so how do you go about it? Thanks.

 

Some trucks have springs that attach to the pedal to help pull it back, are these wore out. On the Petes I had there was an adjustment under the cab to keep the pedal coming through the floor and not rubbing on the sides of the hole it comes up through. Unless of course your pedal comes down from under the dash.

 

Like Jumbo said there could be a spring to help pull the pedal up to the top. Not sure about your specific truck but some IH's had one under the dash going to the pedal. Look underneath and see if a broken one is hanging or if it looks like one should be there. It could also have one on the bell housing or elsewhere on the linkage. Don't try adjusting the linkage to get the pedal all the way up.

Actual clutch adjustment should never be done using the linkage once it's been setup correctly. To set it up correctly you need to adjust at the clutch to get 1/2" of space between the release bearing and the clutch brake. If that gives you 1 1/2" of freeplay it's perfect. If you don't have the 1 1/2" you then adjust the linkage to get it.
From then on whenever you start loosing freeplay you should adjust it underneath on the clutch itself.
All of the above applies to a normal clutch. If it's a self adjusting Solo all you can do is reset it and hope that helps.

From the symptoms you say you have it's probably just time to do a clutch.
I would be looking in the bottom of the bell housing for pieces of broken clutch springs. They don't always fall down though, sometimes you have to actually unbolt the clutch from the flywheel to get them to fall out.

 

This doesn't wear the discs, it wears the release yoke and bearing. It also ruins pedal feel; the fact that you have NO clutch-pedal "free play" usually means your clutch requires adjustment.

Your problem seems more like binding in the clutch linkage (cross shaft bushings). If you pull the pedal up with your foot, does it fall back down again? You could also check inside the bell housing for broken clutch springs, etc.

 

The grease helped alot. If you pull the pedal up it stays til the next time you clutch it.