RE: Hydraulic or Mechanical clutch - Which would you chose?

["Kurt Musgrave" <rvar@domain.elided>]

What Ford did on the '80's trucks was use a throwout bearing that
was designed for continuous duty (although this can be argued)
They used a weak spring in the slave cylinder to lightly push the
bearing against the fingers all the time, hence the self
adjusting capability. The problem was with the bearing in
continuous contact it transferred heat from the fingers and
cooked the grease in the sleeve.  Then they started having
problems with the master cylinder mount breaking off the firewall
and all kinds of other problems.  On my 84 Ford I poke a long
grease gun in the throw out arm hole and grease the sleeve every
couple months.
On the old IH hydraulic setup the slave cyl arm is adjustable to
allow the bearing to come off the fingers at rest.  As the clutch
wears it needs to be adjusted to keep the bearing from rubbing.

Kurt.