Have you tried shifting without the clutch by matching engine speed. Easy way to tell if its clutch or not. Also tell you something about the synchros. If I were you I would just hop on ebay or craigslist you can find a good used transmission for a very good price and a complete rebuilt unit is probably close to a grand with core exchange. If you really like the truck I would plan on that. Either that or find a tranny shop with a damn good warrant Your truck has a v6 so your going to be looking for the r150 transmission/ a 151 will not work if im not mistaken.

 

Holy Cow this is old news.

To update I found that the clutch fluid was basically black water. It looked OK from outside, but once it was drained into a clear container it was totally black and flowed too easily in the jar.

Draining and bleeding off the old stuff took most of an afternoon and restored quite a bit of clutch feeling. However not all the way back to normal. I ordered a new master and slave, but have not yet installed them due to too busy a schedule and some back problems. Just might take it in this fall for valve covers and have the master/slave done at the same time.

Ebay and Alaska don't mix when shipping heavy objects like transmissions. There is one small garage up here that has a stockpile of used parts, but any used part in Alaska needs to be completely rebuilt anyway due to the abuse most trucks see here.