by Sharft6 » Thu Aug 27, 2020 6:27 pm
I had the same problem with a 1997 Holden Rodeo which is just a rebadged isuzu ute. The same thing happened to my cousin's older isuzu ute but still 90s era. His master cylinder eventually detached from the firewall so he replaced the clutch, oil seal and lubed everything at the same time. So he's not sure what stopped the squeaking.
I removed the slave cylinder as suggested here and greased the ball that pushes on the arm/clutch fork as well as the contact point against the slave cylinder under the rubber boot. No difference. I then removed the rubber around the clutch fork arm on the edge of the bell housing, tried to grease the pivot point of the clutch fork arm then ended up sprayed it with penetrating oil because it's hard to see/reach, then I put grease on a piece of wire and poked it in to spread a little grease on the input shaft of gearbox between the release bearing and the pressure plate fingers. At this point it seamed nothing was working and the squeak was still there. I put it all back together and decided to give up. Left it a couple days then came back, bled the clutch a little and took it for a test drive. The squeak has now disappeared.
In the end I think it was coming from the release bearing rubbing on the gearbox input shaft (it felt slightly sticky or gummy with everything disconnected). It just took a while to spread the small amount of grease. In hind sight I'd probably give it a little more grease but there you go.
Fair warning - the rubber cover around the clutch fork arm on the bell housing might take some patients to put back in properly.