6MT throwout bearing and clutch system shenanigans

@BillDaCat8 how's your clutch master cylinder quest going?

 

Glad I stumbled across this thread. Interesting stuff…!

 

I need to get back on that. That project got buried behind a bunch of other things I have going on here at the house in PHX as well as at my mom’s place up in Oregon.

 

After torquing the new flywheel and clutch to spec, I'm now setting up my Tilton HRB in the trans but having a hard time getting a decently consistent measurement for finger height. Triple checking work, it seems my measurement varies as much as ~2mm and seems not all of the clutch fingers are the exact same height either. As you all know, when setting up the HRB on the threaded quill spacer, it can only sit a few degrees from turn to turn on the quill and still have the anti-rotation pin bracket line up so there's a limited margin of adjustment.

It doesn't seem like this is something I should ballpark so any other tips to getting this right the first time so I don't have to stab my tranny more than once or am I overthinking this step?

Thanks! @Kasbien @BillDaCat8

 

Can you please post a few pictures of how you have the assembly set up inside of the bell housing?

I worry about the clutch fingers varying in height as well. Doesn’t sound right.

I will tentatively tell you that your bearing face should be in the neighborhood of 107-108mm (EDIT! 110-111MM. I forgot to add the 3mm) from the face of the bell housing. But, it’s always better to measure and be sure.

Adjustment at the quill is as precise as you want to get with it. Between rotating the HRB and the threaded sleeve on the quill itself, you can place it exactly where you want it.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

Here's my set-up and where I think I landed (RC62A, Tilton HRB, Kasbien's gorgeous handiwork and a URD/Competition Clutch Stage 2)



It's hard to get a good shot while holding everything but here's the gist:

After giving up on clamping door shims to a straight edge, I just put my best 2-foot level on the clutch and measured from the face of it to the motor, then subtracted the difference of that to clutch fingers. I keep landing on 107mm but that has varied from 104 to 110mm after doing it a dozen times and a few different ways.



I don't have a small enough straight edge to truly determine if the clutch fingers are off but maybe the variance I'm finding is just where it is on the finger itself I'm landing for the measurement.


Then to the tranny, level across the bell housing 107mm + 3mm air gap + 28.5mm for the thickness of the straight edge has me at 138.5mm total. Right at 110mm from face of bellhousing back to the face of the bearing.

Is my process ok? A little soft in the head today so definitely need some help. Was really pleased you reminded me the threaded quill spacer can rotate, @BillDaCat8 as that was completely off my radar today. Might be time to hang it up and come back another day but appreciate all the help.

 

Sounds to me like you’re doing fine.

Everything looks good in your pictures at least what I can make out by squinting at my phone screen does. Lol.

I was mistaken when I said that the bearing should be 107 to 108 mm away. I had forgotten to add the 3 mm.

This gap that we’re shooting for is not absolutely critical to the thousandth or anything like that. What we’re doing here is allowing for a clutch wear in the future. As the clutch disk wears, the fingers of the pressure plate will naturally sit closer and closer. The idea is to avoid a situation where the bearing cannot retract enough to fully engage the clutch once it has a good amount of wear on it.

The bearing has more than enough travel to get the job done even if you’re off by a couple of millimeters. I wouldn’t sweat it too much.

 

Looking at the HRB orientation again, I think you're asking for a pesky air bubble in that upper bleed line. You might consider loosening up the arm and rotating clockwise to try to eliminate that high spot in the line.

Blue loctite on that hardware too.

 

Awesome! Thanks so much for the info. And I'll be sure to spin the assembly to ensure an easy bleed.

 

1 small step. Bearing went on like butter. Aluminum piece to tilton piston was pretty difficult.

 

I'm late. You all good now? I'm sure your measurement setup was fine for what we're doing. The piston has a decent amount of travel. And I can't think of any precision straight edges that long that people would just have kicking around their household. You'd have to visit a machine shop and borrow their tools if you really wanted to improve upon the measuring setup and truly split hairs. You likely had troubles repeating the same measurement twice simply because hanging the depth side of a vernier caliper perfectly straight off of a chamfered edge (like on your bubble level there) is tricky. If you don't do it often it helps to have someone else view it from the side to tell you if you're perpendicular to the work surface or not. You do have Mitutoyo calipers though, so that helps.

If you're worried about the deviations in pressure plate fingers you could always put something flat across them (ie: flatbar stock) to take the collective height of across all of them and simply account for the material thickness in your measuring.

It's kind of a pain compared to just rotating the whole Tilton unit round and round, but you can get some "fine" height adjustment out of the threaded sleeve if you can get your fingers in there to spin the sleeve itself instead. That way you can nail your measurement and/or clock the unit so that the hose connections are basically parallel with your garage floor.

A number of good points here in this latest convo with you and Bill that I should add to the kit notes for others.

 

I've added a note about the potential need for additional "mating encouragement." Sorry that it was tight for you Anthony. Unfortunately I don't have any control over how the manufacturers tolerance their parts. At least it's not loose.

 

No worries, Kasbien! I ended up getting something I'm satisfied with. Thanks for your repsonse.



So far it's the medium length big pedestal bolt with your included washer between the aluminum extension bracket and the pedestal for proper 2mm+ spacing, the medium length anti-rotation bolt with the lock nut red loctited to the back and 110mm total distance into the bellhousing. I'm cutting access holes into the body for the shifter levers today and will likely install the tranny tomorrow or the next day. Thanks for your response!

 

Looking good! I appreciate the feedback on which hardware you ended up using. Kind of looks like the ARPB for the RC62F might need to be a shorter distance in order to better orientate the Tilton hoses more parallel with the floor. Does that make sense? Would you be able to take an "eyeball" measurement for me from center of the hex bolt to the center of the Tilton slotted tab if it was perfectly parallel with the floor? Probably shorter than the ~2" mark for the RA60F.

 

I was thinking the same thing Kellen. Looks like it's gone a bit too far the other way now.

 

Happy to pull it apart and get a decent measurement for you if you'd like. Just let me know.

It looks like the "TILTON" logo face on the HRB is parallel to the center line in your installation. Is that what I should shoot for? Easy enough to make a bracket if I have to.

 

Yes the logo would be parallels to Bill's centerline. Same thing as pictured below. I don't think you'll need to make a new bracket, but I can adjust it going forward. Clock the bracket and the Tilton housing as much as the slotted tab will allow for.





This would be the measurement I'm looking for. I haven't had any prior feedback on it and I haven't had a RC62F bellhousing in front of me so my assumption was it was OK. No need to disassemble your setup for it though. A quick tape or ruler measurement is fine.

 

@Kasbien Hard to tell from the pic as I couldn't line it all up with one hand to take the shot but an anti-rotation bracket at 1 and 5/8" from center to center ought to align it all nicely for the RC62. Plenty of meat on your nice 2" bracket to drill, re-tap and grind down for my application as I wouldn't want you to have to send me another package.

 

You paid for a kit so you shouldn't have to muck around like that! If you're eager to press on with your install and this is holding you back then I totally get it. I'll send you some money back. If you can wait, I can stay after work on Friday and rework all the RC62F brackets at once and send them out to everyone effected. They won't look "hack" by any means. Remnants of the old tapped hole will be completely removed.

I think I could probably just slip them in a standard letter mail envelope for the cost of an american stamp but if they say no I'll ship them accordingly in bubblers.

Sorry for the headache! You've been great to work with. I appreciate the measurement as well. Feel free to PM me.

 

Dang buddy. This is above and beyond kinda customer service. You're not making any money here. You do amazing work and I wanna see you succeed in this venture so I'm not gonna let you do this for free. I gotta send you funds for materials, postage and your time. After all, I wouldn't be taking this on without you and billdacat.

As for me, you've seen I'm in no rush here and have been taking my time just to get every detail done to the best of my ability. I've got champagne OCD with Schlitz talent, though, so not everything is gonna be perfect. That said, the devil (and the satisfaction) is in the details so I'd love one of your brackets. It'll go in the only 6spd RC62 DCLB VF2B t-case Tacoma on the planet (that I know of. Lol!)