6MT throwout bearing and clutch system shenanigans

This thread is one of many on TW regarding these issues. As some may know. I’ve had a “less than good” experience with the whole clutch setup in this truck. From rev-hang to slippage. Squeaking throwout bearings to leaking hydro bearings. TSB parts, pedal squeek, etc. it’s all just a huge pita and it’s really got me down on a vehicle I really enjoy otherwise.

Herein will be my ramblings on the matter...

Sister thread to this one on what was going to be regarding transmission internals is here. As it turns out, that thread morphed into an RC62F swap.

 

Last updated 3/9/24

So, A lot of people have asked for me to list what parts I used to make all of this work. Here ya go.

Fj Cruiser Clutch Pedal parts:

31301-35270 x 1 Fj clutch pedal

31321-52010 x 1 Pedal foot pad

90386-14015 x 2 Pedal pivot bushings.

90387-08160 x 1 Collar shaft for pedal pivot. You probably don't need this unless yours is badly worn. I re-used mine.

90389-06055 x 1 Bushing at the top of the pedal for the turnover spring

90541-06036 x 2 Pad where pedal contacts the cruise cancel switch and brake switch. Three of these are required if you’re not going to be incorporating a pedal stop (i.e non-HRB applications)

47131-47070 x 1 The thicker pad that I used to contact lower pedal switch. (Not quite thick enough after all)

31453-35010 x 1 Clevis I modified and used to eliminate the plastic damper thingy.

90249-08018 x 1 Pin (for use with 31453-35010 clevis)

90386-08033 x 1 Bushing for pin

90206-08001 x 1 Wave washer for pin

90468-15006 x 1 Clip to retain pin

If you are plan to replace the master cylinder, you can buy the FJ master (31420-35070) and you will get a plastic clevis that obviously works with the Fj pedal along with it. You will not need the 31453-35010 clevis, but you will need a different pin than the one above for that.

90240-T0002 x 1 Pin for plastic Fj clevis.

Release bearing parts:

90363-45013 x 1 Is the actual clutch release bearing suitable for the 2nd gen OE clutch pressure plate with 60mm diameter opening in the fingers. You will likely have to source it from overseas. I ordered mine off of ebay. It shipped out of Dubai. It only took 3-4 days to receive.

11183-62010 x 2 I modified and used these half moons to seal up the 34mm hole where the original release cylinder was. I haven’t tried, but I’m betting that, due to casting differences, these will only work with the RC62F. @Kasbien kit users will not need these.

Russell 641380 Speed Bleeder. Not absolutely necessary. But, nice. Summit Russell Napa

Earls 989544 adapter fitting for OE hydraulic hard line to HRB connection. Summit

DEI 010418 Heat sheath Summit DEI

I ordered these numbers direct from Tilton: Although, it seems that they are easier to obtain through Summit.

Tilton 60-612. "HRB 6000 Series (short) less brg and piston" Summit Jegs

Tilton 61-628 "Threaded Sleeve" Summit

Tilton 62-6122 "Piston for 40mm I.D bearing" Summit








A few pics with part numbers of some of the stuff I bought…

 

So @Kasbien has taken the time to produce a few pieces that will make the Tilton HRB installation a bit easier. If you are going to do this, start with him. Here are his notes on his kit. And, here is his ad.

 

Last updated 2/23/24

So, I'm going to skim through this thread and dump the highlights into this post. It is a work in progress as I attempt to organize the info contained in this thread for easier digestion.
That being said, I do still encourage you to read through the entire thread as I will inevitably forget an important detail or fail to completely explain something. Please, if you see anything that I need to add or edit, let me know.

Toyota 90363-45013. I’d like you to meet Tilton 62-612. I think you two are going to get along great.





Spacer to mate piston to bearing machined and then assembled. I ended up machining for a .001” interference fit. I then froze the piston and heated the ring. They slid together like butter. I forgot to take pics of that part.





Here’s the piston back in the freezer about to be mated to the bearing. You can see the spacer already installed here. I even have the spacer pre-lubed with a light coating of grease. Dont tell the wife. Yes, those are ice chunks it is sitting on.



Aaand here it is pushed into the bearing. Took a bit more force this time to push it into place. I’m guessing because my spacer ring had “grown” .001” or so after it was installed on the piston. Next time I’ll be ready for that little change.





Slid it all together and a quick test fit in the RC62F. It would look pretty much the same in the RA60F.




The old RA60F and the new RC62F side by side.



Spec 3+ clutch has landed. This thing is pretty gnarly. The disk is quite heavy. Which is a bad thing. I do not recommend this clutch. At least not this disk.




Got the flywheel back from the machine shop. Here’s the way it looks when cut on a true flywheel machine. 1.5mm or .060” is the correct spec for the step. Make sure your machine shop understands that. Also, MAKE SURE the alignment pins are installed in the flywheel. Machine shops love to forget to re-install these. They do not come on a new flywheel either.




Difficult to see here. For the RC62F, When the bearing height is adjusted to where it needs to be, the anti- rotation tab on the Tilton unit ends up below the boss for the pivot ball.



I made the bracket to hold the anti-rotation pin. I just used some aluminum scrap I had laying around. I’ll replace the pivot ball with a proper bolt before final assembly.



As viewed through the inspection hole in the bell housing. By looking at this pic, I can see that I still need to massage the threaded sleeve to fully sit against the base of the quill. This is one thing where the RC trans differs from the RA trans. It seated perfectly on the RA.



This is a better angle to see how the anti-rotation tab sits behind/lower than the pivot ball boss. No problem. We just put the pin in @BassAckwards



Chucked up and ready to knock that edge off. This step won't be necessary for those of you using the @Kasbien kit. He has created a spacer to handle this.



Ahh. That’s more like it. Sleeve is fully seated against the base of the quill.



I added some shrink tubing on the bolt that is acting as my anti-rotation pin. Just to tighten things up a bit and to help protect that hydro housing from getting too chewed up by those threads.



So, sealing up the 34mm hole where the OE slave cylinder was is something that still needs to be done. But, I have an idea...



So, this is what I did with those half-moons: This step won't be necessary for those of you using the @Kasbien kit obviously.







Flywheel is bolted up. Always use new OE flywheel bolts. Torque them evenly in a cross pattern to 22 ft lbs. Then turn another 90° in two steps. I use a sharpie pen to mark things and then do the 90’s in two steps. The bolts are designed to stretch a particular amount. That's why we replace them EVERY time. They're not that expensive. /rant




Spec 3+ clutch is ready to go.




New bolts for the clutch pressure plate too. The previous clutch took a lot of torque on these bolts to get the pressure plate seated against the flywheel. So much so that I thought that I was going to break them. Definitely wanted to replace them for this go-around.



All bolted down and ready.



Make sure the pressure plate seats against the flywheel. You’ll feel it contact as you tighten the bolts. I’ve heard several stories of pressure plates coming loose. Likely from the installer not paying attention and just shooting for a torque spec.



This was my first attempt to rig up a way to measure finger height. It didn’t work out. The back end of the rulers were hitting the trans tunnel of the body.



Rummaging through my garage, I found some door frame shims left over from a house project. That’ll do. Paint mixing sticks would’ve been good too. But, I didn’t find any.



Here it is in action. Final results: 105mm from block/bell housing to clutch fingers. So, that means that we need to set the release bearing to be 108mm deep in the bell housing. The 3mm gap allows for clutch wear.



Transmission is in! I’d say that I nailed it on the bearing gap.



A little extra insurance against any thermal issues. I slid it all the way up to the topmost pressure line holding bracket on the back of the engine block. It’s all bunched up here until I get the hardline connected to the braided line. At that point I’ll slide it over the full length of the pressure line.





As I was typing the previous post. The delivery truck of happiness showed up.



One more thing done.

Here’s the connection with the adapter in play.



Had to split the heat sheath. It was just a bit too small to slide over the adapter.



Bolted down the Russell bleed bracket. Pretty cool. Should make bleeding a bit easier.



OE RC62F heat shield in place. I notched the bottom of it to make room for the bleed line.



Hey! I said; No more plastic shit!



The old and the new pedal.



My idea for an adjustable pedal stop.



Clevis pictured with one of the newer plasticy ones. Was just figuring how much longer the new one needed to be. Turns out, an inch. Seems like everything is just an inch off with this whole project.




Found an 8x1.25 coupler at the local hardware store. It’s a hair short at 22mm. But, it’ll do the trick. I ran a long 8x1.25 bolt up through the both of them before welding to make sure it all lined up nicely.




Ready to weld.



The chrome-esque coating on the clevis was very un-fond of welding temperatures. I had to knock it all off with an abrasive disc. I would’ve liked to have it coated again, But, I need this truck back on the road. So, a dousing of fluid film will have to do.



Here’s the new no-B.S. clevis installed on the new pedal. Then, pedal installed. The FJ pedal fits with zero drama. New bushings everywhere.





Pedal stop.




This video was taken before I’d set the pedal stop. It does not need to stroke this far to disengage.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLQVYkZpkPu/

Here’s what it looks like in action.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLQWDI6pRBL/

This is Tilton’s video for setting up their HRB. Watch and understand. This is a very important step!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X2JAoHhy0A

If you’ve been following this thread, you’ll recognize when I did the measuring and such. Pay close attention to the back end of the video where they discuss setting the pedal stop. I did that part yesterday and was quite pleasantly surprised at how little stroke the clutch actually needs to disengage. So, do not skip this setting. For that reason, I’m going to say that the FJ pedal should be mandatory for any sort of HRB setup. It’ll work for second as well as third gen trucks.

Another note. The clutch switch at the bottom of the pedal’s stroke is now not being contacted by the pedal because of the stop bolt. So, that will need an adjustment. I’ve just been using the bypass switch on the dash until then.

Edit:

I’ve learned this morning that the maximum allowable adjustment at this switch is insufficient. I’m going to need to extend the switch bumper on the back of the pedal.

 

When researching how this was all going to work:
RA60F bell housing acquired for measurements and test fitting.






Below pics are the RC62F of the 3rd gen Tacoma




OE RA60F throwout bearing:





The new 90363-45013 bearing:

 

Is this a new OEM RA60 bellhousing?

 

RA60F. Yes.

 

How much did that hell housing run you ?

 

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but you do know that the whole transmission has to come apart, starting at the rear side, to get that thing on? Neverless, I've followed your travails and you probably already know that. Sorry your hydro bearing has been such a pain...

 

Yes. I’m aware of what needs to happen to replace that. I do not intend to. My existing one is fine. I ordered this thing to get some measurements and to test fit things.

I do however intend to dive inside of mine when it’s out. I have a slight grind going into third that I want to address. I’m also contemplating a swap-out of 6th gear and the countershaft to the .799 OD of the FJcruiser. But, that’s another thread.

 

PM me.

 

d have done

Wished I had been following you a bit closer as I have one and could have done the measurements for you.
I have been into a couple of these now and on your '08 the shift fork for 3rd is immediately suspect (it is crummy cast aluminum). That and the syncromesh keys and springs on the respective clutch hub have been a recurrent failure point (later revised). And naturally the 3rd syncro and its bearing (slop develops).

If you get to the surgery stage I would invite you to PM me before spending any money on parts as there have been a boat load of part revisions quietly upgrading the transmission over the years. In addition there have been two revisions of the entire transmission, for three total versions.

For a long time on this forum I have advocated that IMHO it would be a better idea to find a '13-'15 transmission instead, and preferably a late-'14(from March 2014 on) to late-'15 as you will get the upgraded counter shaft.

 

I love a good ramble...

 

That's good info.

 

You and I will be talking for sure sir. Thank you.

I want to iron out this release problem first. Then I'll get into the guts of the thing.

 

I'm looking at another OEM bearing that might work in place of the stock unit. It's slightly larger in some areas, though it sees use with a 275mm clutch. LMK if you have any interest.

3rd gear bearing slop can be reduced/eliminated by cross drilling the main shaft so it receives oil from the shaft center... though I should ask, is the RA shaft center drilled like the RC? We can move this discussion elsewhere so we don't muddy the T/O bearing info.

 

You should consider making this into a thread all about this throw out bearing issue, since you clearly have some experience with it. It would be cool to have one thread with all known answers, like what causes the problem, and all of the different ways you can “fix” the issue, even though we know none of them work. I would love to start such a thread but I don’t know much about this issue yet, I just started researching it.

 

so far i like the .799 of the ra61f. been running it for about 40k now. i will have to make some time to go in and do 4th synchro for some grinding. i have a bad feeling by the time i get in there i will have to do the gear as well. but if you make a thread for that ill add more.
i do have the clutch masters hydro bearing. starting to get squeaking again in the cold.

 

Yes, please. Do tell on the TO bearing you’re looking at. I’ve been researching for days now. I’ve found few prospects from vehicles that weren’t imported to the states. And they’d need to be modified.