Difficulty Pushing down Clutch pedal

I and some friends have recently completed swapping out the T-15 tranny in my 1973 CJ5 and have installed a Ford T-18 4 speed transmission. It was a major undertaking as we rebuilt the 304 engine, transfer case and adapted in the rebuilt T-18 tranny. Its all working fine except that the clutch pedal takes some real effort to push down. Now I'm 6'4" and have plenty of leg to push on this pedal and its still hard to depress. First, I'm wondering if
I installed the bellcrank backwards because the way I have it now, the short arm of the bell crank is attached to the rod coming from the clutch pedal and the long arm of the bellcrank is where the rod pushes on the lever coming out of the bellhousing. I installed it so the zerk fitting was facing up, but now I'm wondering if I got it reversed. Second, if thats not the problem, any ideas? Thanks, Doc

 

Do you have any pics of how your clutch is set up?

 

Here's mine.
http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l47/SwampRatt/?action=view&current=Clutchlinkage.jpg

 

Backwards. Short end to the clutch pushrod. Zerk inside the frame, pointing down and back.

I measured, and the lengths aren't wildly different - something like 2.5" to 3.5"...

 

Mine is Bassackwards, Hmm.. I replaced it the way it was in. I'll flip it and see how it works. I've been driving it this way for a year or so with not problems.

Thanks, Ya never know when you are going to learn something.

 

SwampRatt, thanks for the pictures. I have mine installed just like yours so I'm wondering if I just need to do some adjusting. My zerk fitting seems to point up more than yours. Tim, the bell crank is installed like you say it should be, any more ideas. I'll try to get some pictures uploaded, but I'm on dial up here in the sticks, so I don't know if I can.

 

I think Tim is saying we have it if backwards, that it the bell crank needs to be flipped 180. This might have some effect on petal pressure.

 

Are you sure you have the correct clutch throw out bearing? If it is not the right one, it will bind on the shaft. How does the clutch work. The clutch arm should be adjusted to only move the clutch plate about 3/8" to disengage. If you have it adjusted wrong, it can get really hard to depress.

 

Thanks Paul, I hadn't thought about that yet.

 

Well, 3 months later I finally got around to flipping the bellcrank so the long arm goes to to clutch pedal and the short arm goes to clutch release next to the bellhousing. Wow! What a difference. First I checked to see if it worked properly, then I adjusted the pedal play, and it works great and only took about 30minutes to get it done. The difference is unbelievable. Can't believe I got it backwards, but since everything was apart for so long, stuff is bound to get mixed up.