I had the same issues...the stock bearing retainer is aluminum and the throwout bearing eventually wears grooves in it. The t.o. bearing starts getting caught up on those grooves making it hard to push the clutch in. The hard shifting is the clutch not disengaging fully. Oh, and your cable is probably stretched and close to breaking. The clicking is the t.o. bearing, probably worn out from the abuse of Ford's poor design (aluminum a bad idea as a friction bearing surface).
hanlonmotorsports.com has pictures of what a bad retainer looks like.
You'll need the following parts to fix your problem:
Throwout Bearing - $20 (not 100% sure of price)
Steel Retainer from Hanlon - $50
New clutch cable - $50 for an aftermarket or $100+ for Ford OEM.
Maybe get a new fork and ball stud if you didn't get one with your clutch. - $20-$30?
Really sucks, sorry you have to deal with the annoyance of that. Take it from me, just do it right the first time. I would just replace the cable and went through 3 or 4 of them. It wasn't until I rebuilt my trans (mostly due to a leaking rear seal) that I replaced the retainer and t.o. bearing. Huge difference. Before the steel retainer I was lucky if a cable lasted 3 months. I did the rebuild in August 2002 and it's still strong.
Good luck,
Rich D.
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