95 Escort Tranny problem

Hey everyone...

I've taken a look through the forum here, but not seen anyone with a similar problem to the one having, so I thought I'd post it up.

My 95 Escort's been a great car, got about 156K on it, and just now starting to have a bit of a problem with it. Here recently, the manual transmission seems to be possibly slipping a little bit. When shifting into 1st gear, there are no problems shifting, but when accelerating from a dead stop, the engine will rev up to about 3000 rpms, then slowly go down and the car will begin to pick up speed. This happens less when going into 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th gears, but if I accelerate too hard, then the engine will rev again and then if I let off the gas a little bit, the rpms will drop back down and continue to pick up speed.

I have spoken with a couple people here that I know, and one seems to think that perhaps the pressure plate is going out on the clutch/transmission, and another thinks that maybe just the hydraulic line needs to be bled, that perhaps there is some air that has gotten into the line. I'm going to try bleeding the hydraulic line this weekend, but I was wondering if anyone else that frequents the forum has had any similar problems or heard of any similar problems.

Thanks in advance for any advice that you guys can give.

Sounds like the clutch is probably slipping. I don't have a manual trans on my escort, but 150k miles seems reasonable before needing replacement. It will likely start getting worse and worse, until eventually you'll be stuck.

Mine does the same thing, time for a new clutch.

Had the same problem on a 95 wagon. The rear seal was leaking contaminating the clutch disc. Had to replace the clutch disc and pressure plate. Got a clutch kit for $89 on ebay which included the disc, pressure plate and a pilot tool to line everything up.

Mine has early symptoms too. How hard is it to do the work to replace the clutch, press plate yourself? Do you have to pull the engine?