Loose clutch fork

I've been coming to this forum for mechanical how-to's for years, since my first tacoma. I've owned a 95' 2.4l 2wd, a '97 3.4l 2wd, and now a 02' 2.7l 4wd. Every single one of them has been an excellent truck with over 200k miles.
Until now I've never had any serious issues with any of them. Unfortunately, the clutch fork on my current taco has gone limp. But I'm just a backyard mechanic, hence why I've decided to become a member and hopefully get some insight on how to repair this the proper way. I think this should be discussed in the proper forum, maybe not in the "new members" threads?
My username is hugely misleading lol, I'm here to receive knowledge from the true masters
Anyway, glad to be here.

 

Perhaps make the title and opening sentence more topic related and helpful people will tap in. It is easy to miss the question in the story.

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Hmm I think you're right, I just can't figure out how to change the title after I published it.
I should post my taco's situation in the 1st gen threads?

 

Thank you! Glad to finally be a member of the forum

 

Above post 1 click thread tools, then edit title.
In the first post at the bottom just click edit.

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld

 

I'd bleed your clutch first since it's super cheap

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/clutch-pedal-truffle-shuffle.499079/

 

Thank you, it's more of an intro thread so I hope I haven't mislead anyone.

 

No, not at all.
He was just saying, put the problem you're having in the title. Likely get more traction and answers that way.

 

So the back story (sorry for the long read):
In short, my clutch fork is completely loose and I'm wondering what my next move should be.
Tuck was driving perfectly fine before this. I shifted to neutral at a stop sign, once I was ready to move forward the shifter would no longer shift into 1st or any other gear, not even reverse. No weird noises or burned oil smells.
At first, my clutch pedal had pressure, no change at all, not spongy or hard, just the normal pressure it has always had. I turned my truck off and was then able to shift into 1st gear, then attempted to turn my truck on, however it sounded "forced", so I immediately stopped. For whatever reason I attempted to do it again, only this time I lost pressure at the clutch pedal. It stays up but there is no resistance at all.
Anyway, I towed it home. Checked under it, and realized my slave cylinder was leaking from the boot. The cylinder had popped out. So I bought a new one and replaced it. I then attempted to bleed it, but after a few minutes of not getting any pressure build up, the boot swelled and started leaking as well. Turns out I popped out the cylinder on the new one as well.
I warrantied that one, but now I decided to check the clutch fork. Surprise, it was loose. The thing moves up n down, back n forth, in n out. My guess is the slave cylinders popped out because the clutch fork was loose?
So my question is, what is the next move? From what I've gathered on the forum is, the transmission has to be dropped in order to see if its broken or just loose? And that I should probably do a clutch service, since my truck has 270k miles.
Does that sound about right or am I way off?

 

Take a small flashlight and remove the boot on the clutch fork to see what you can see. You can also put your phone in the hole and record a video. It sounds either your fork broke or your throw out bearing might have grenaded.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/clutch-fork-snapped.624410/

There's a pivot ball in there that super rarely can break also, but don't jump to conclusions.

 

Ohh okay, I gotcha. It has been done!

 

@MTgirl can we move this into the 1st gen area plz?

 

Okay, I will tackle that boot tomorrow as soon as I'm off work. I bought a complete clutch kit from NAPA, but I'm waiting to see what actually happened to the clutch fork to know if I need to purchase it as well. Or might just do it anyway while my trans is out?

Thank you for the tips so far, and that thread link. I appreciate the input very much.

 

I pulled the transmission and here's what I found

Previous owner jerry rigged a nut and bolt to act as a pivot ball and used wire to hold it to the clutch fork. And added some weld metal to the divot on the clutch fork. Lol

 

I'm now stumped on the new clutch disc. It is a NAPA brand kit. Pressure plate goes in fine with the included alignment tool. However the clutch disc will not slip into the three alignment pins around the flywheel. The holes and everything line up, but it seems the holes for the pins to go into are just large enough that you have to force the thing in. Is this normal? Shouldn't it fit just snug?

 

Manufacturing tolerances and what not, are you sure it's the actual double pins in the flywheel that it's stomping on? The pressure plate will have some tension on it to clamp down the clutch disc the resistance you are feeling may just be bending the pressure plate spring fingers up.

I know it's a good and snug fit on oem, the holes may be exactly the right size before they get painted on your napa and just need reamed out or paint removed.

 

Ahhh, you're right, it was the disc holding the pressure plate off the flywheel. I can run the bolts until the pressure plate touches the flywheel. But I'll need to wait to get a torque wrench so I can tighten them to specs.

By the way, I read somewhere the pressure plate has some markings that must align with the flywheel, but I haven't seen any marks anywhere. Hmm.