6MT throwout bearing and clutch system shenanigans

Who has been running the Tilton set up the longest here? What's your miles on and how has it held up?

 

35k on mine. Holding up just fine so far…

 

Just bleeding my Tilton HRB after installing everything again. With tranny landed, I checked the inspection window and was pleased I had ~3mm of air gap. Proceeded to put everything back together from there. Pedal stop was set from my previous install.

Now, I'm having a hard time bleeding the system and having clutch pedal feel normal. So I pulled the inspection window. Even with clutch master disconnected from the pedal, my air gap disappeared (bearing is sitting flush on the clutch diaphram springs) and doesn't return to where it was when I first inspected it. As I said, MC is disengaged from the pedal thinking my pedal freeplay was the culprit (but it's not) and I've opened the bleed port hoping it would return to 3mm out but it has not.

Looking for suggestions on what to do. If I have to pull the tranny again, I'm gonna stab a screw driver in my ear.

@BillDaCat8 @Kasbien @cfcarpenter

 

Just had a super-informative conversation with Jeff at Tilton. He said once the air gap is set and the piston has a bleed, it doesn't return to its bore.

He also gave me some more bleeding tips and basically said not to depress the clutch all the way to the stop at first, only to where it begins to engage the diaphragm spring. Then open the bleed port and only then to press the pedal all the way. My wife was going full open to fully depressed on the pedal and apparently it's harder to get a good bleed, or not at all, that way.

 

So is it normal for it to be sitting like that? Or just a bleed issue?

not sure I’ll ever get around to installing this since it’s my wife’s truck now lol

 

Jeff at Tilton said it was normal for it to sit that way. I'd give you a hand installing it but not for a while. I was happy to not be under the truck today!

 

I have a little over 20k on mine.

 

I've wondered about this as well. You'd have to have one of the Tilton branded release bearings in front of you to compare the rolling coefficient of friction out of the box. I'm assuming it must have significantly less resistance than the Nachi bearing since they went ahead with the 6000 housing design without any means of "locking" the orientation of the piston during piston travel (ie: key slot). Or it's just to prevent serious damage to the housing in the event of the bearing failing and seizing up entirely (keyed and it would grenade things). Did Bill's break-in idea do the trick? Every industrial Nachi bearing that I install at work has that lovely initial "stiffness" to it but loosens up after some usage.

Your hose routing is awesome. Were you unable to get ARPBracket spacing further away from the slotted tab with what was provided? Also is that a set screw that you added to it?

Sorry my dude. Haven't looked at TW in a while. Went away, got engaged, blah blah blah. I wouldn't blame you if you utilized your srewdriver in that manner haha. All good now that Jeff sorted you out?

Defiantly good info. The note about pedal depression should really be in their paper install instructions. Maybe Bill can add this to his main post.

 

Congrats on your engagement, my guy! Wishing you all the best things in this next chapter of your life.

On another note, my truck seems dialed. No judder from the Aisin clutch, tranny shifts smoothly and I'm just stoked to finally have the truck the way I wanted it from the factory. Thanks once again for all of your help and energy in getting me sorted. I can't say thanks enough. Cheers for now!

 

YEAH! So happy to hear that! Your perseverance is admirable. Hats off to you.

And thanks man. I helped her get her dream career sorted out so maybe she'll support me while I'm a machine shop startup with lot's of machinery loan debt.

 

To follow up, it does appear that the bearing has loosened up and the initial concern may have been a non-issue. I have around 500 miles or so on the setup and had another look through the inspection cover with the vehicle cold and just started. Virtually no rotation of the tilton piston. I also shut off the truck and had my wife depress the clutch a couple time so that I could see the piston surface. Everything looked pristine, with no indication of wear from rotation. I am guessing that if it does rotate very slowly during a cold idle, it must stop very quickly. I imagine this will only get better as the bearing continues to break in. I was comfortable enough to finally re-install the heavy skid plate and call it good. I actually didn't do the break-in procedure that Bill suggested, but am sure it would have been effective. I opted to just to take some longer drives on the windy roads we have around here to get everything warm with lots of shifts.

As to the anti-rotation bracket, it was just barely too high to fit under the slot in the tilton housing and I would had to have spaced it up by a full spacer width and installed the shoulder screw upside down, which I am sure would have been fine. I wanted to be able to remove the tilton unit without taking off the ARB so I decided to just remove a bit of material from both mounting surfaces of the bracket to get it to fit approximately 1mm under the tilton housing slot. There was plenty of meat on the bracket, and if it were to shear I would have much bigger problems.

I ended up aligning the bracket and then drilling a hole through the bracket and into the mounting boss to take a 1/8" roll pin. This is probably not necessary, but the added insurance and permanent index seemed worthwhile.

And to echo the previous responses about the airgap, that goes away as soon as the system is bled and pressure is applied. The release bearing then rides on or just slightly off of the pressure plate fingers. In my experience so far it looks like the bearing is nearly always rotating, which shouldn't be an issue (so long as its not the tilton piston, haha).

Happy so far. My only observation is that I have more perceptible vibration in the pedal during high RPM shifts, but this likely to do with the removal of the clutch accumulator and the much more direct mechanical coupling to the release bearing. Not really an issue, just a change from stock.

Leigh

 

I am currently trying to source all of this to rebuild my tranny. The pedal parts are easy, as well as the Toyota bearing. The Tilton piston I can get from Summit. It's this part I'm having issues finding:
"Tilton 62-612 Piston for 40mm i.d. bearing"
Which one exactly am I looking for because it's a set of 10 and my options from Tilton are as follows:

 

61-612 was discontinued by Tilton and replaced with 61-622. The new part is .050" shorter but works just fine in this application, confirmed by Tilton and Kasbien when I installed mine.

Also, 61-612 had just been discontinued when I did mine, so I thought online parts vendor inventories hadn't reflected the change yet but looks like they're still not on it. Also, you just need one.

 

Where did you happen to source this updated part? I can't seem to find it on Tiltons or Summits website. Thanks in advance

 

Summit has it, at least that is where I bought mine from back in May.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/TIL-62-6122

 

I got mine at Summit, too.

 

same here. $68

 

Thanks for the quick replies! Ordered.

 

Mine looks different... The threads end flush. Instead of being proud. I don't see this being an issue... Thoughts?

 

Can you take a picture of top-view and bottom-view?