No Slave Spring Mod (NSSM)

Hey, Folks.

This is more of a wish me luck than a suggested mod, but I'm bringing you along for the ride.

Edit: I'm changing my opinion here. If you are having TOB issues, I would say to give this a shot?

Back story is that the Throw Out Bearing (TOB) is now a consumable on my Taco. The first one started chirping at 88k. The second at 95k. Now, the third at 104k.

I thought about this mod when putting that third one in because I was annoyed by how much pressure the slave was putting on the TOB. As a note for the 3rd Gen, the TOB is always loaded and spinning with the clutch / pressure plate. I am not a fan of this and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

I do not have a reason or excuse for these TOBs giving up the ghost, which is giving me pause on throwing something at it right now.

In an effort to save some of summer, I wanted to try this before digging into the ClutchMasters hydraulic TOB. Note that the spring pressure at the slave is doubled on the TOB.

The word is that the ClutchMasters TOB is not the answer for us. It seems to get fouled by clutch dust. This one seems to have good reports:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ion-kits-adapted-for-2005-6mt-tacomas.807608/


The mod is pretty simple:

-- Pull the heat shield. Hardest part.
-- Pull the hard line between the (modded) accumulator and slave.
-- Unbolt the slave and experience it shooting out of the bell housing.
-- The piston is not retained in the cylinder. Just pull the rubber boot and use your finger to slide the piston out or use just a hint of air pressure.
-- Peel the stoopid heavy spring off of the piston.
-- Put it all back together.​

A neat side bene of this is that with some hand manipulation, you can bleed the clutch by yourself since you're not fighting the spring.

Just a few drives in and I am pretty happy while working out the final couple air bubbles. The 3rd Gen clutch self bleeds very well if some air happens to get in there.

I saw the TOB spin down after everything was reassembled.

The TOB still spins with the clutch, but the loading is just fluid head pressure, not the heavy spring force.

Notes:

-- The engage point is moved just a bit closer to the floor. Zero clutch drag, but it does change the feel of the stupid overcenter spring. I can feel it flipping over after the clutch is engaged.​

-- Because of the feel of that spring, I can also tell that the engage point changes very slightly. This is likely due to the resting position of the TOB changing slightly.​

The spring:



For fun from the first replacement:

The TOB's home:



The TOB disassembled. There is not a lot of bearing surface, IMO.

 

Man, What else are you gonna get us to pull from the manual transmission? I mean the ADM is genius…

 

Less is more?


Thanks! The ADM was big deal for me.

 

Adding a vid after getting home. The TOB was quiet.

 

How many miles you got on your truck now . I need to come to a meet again sometime .

 

104k, sir!

We definitely need a meetup.

 

This sounds a lot like the issue I had with throwout bearings on a Ford Ranger. They never put enough grease into the bearing when they are manufactured (additionally, the inner side of the bearing does not have a seal either). After awhile, the tiny amount of grease they do use disappears and it starts making a rattly/hissy (dry bearing) noise, eventually turning into a whining noise.

After packing a little extra grease (disc brake wheel bearing grease) into the bearing prior to installing, the issue went away.

 

Thanks!

Packing the bearing was a thought.

I will say that the first one came out loaded up well, as an opinion. That doesn't mean that more might have helped.

I am trying to make a decision on the next move. It was noted the ClutchMasters hydraulic TOB might not be the bees knees.

 

I think some contributing factors to your ongoing problem are that the spring could wear out and not retain as much preload as it once did. Which seems like a lot of pressure still, but it really isn’t. Other bearings have a lot more preload on them. The chirping isn’t the bearing going bad, it’s usually the face of the bearing skipping on the pressure plate fingers from there not being enough preload/friction anymore.

If I were replacing the throwout bearing, I would 100% change the pressure plate at the same time so that both surfaces are new. I would also put in a new spring at that time to put the preload level back to stock in case the spring got weak.

By the time you buy a pressure plate, you may as well do a new clutch disc because the plate is the expensive one. Unfortunately this basically means a new clutch to fix the one bearing progl which annoying to say the least, especially if it happens below 100K miles. I would venture to say replacing only the bearing is an incomplete fix because replacing only that isn’t really fixing the condition that causes the noise, which is why it eventually comes back in 10-15K miles as you’ve experienced.

I am interested to see how the spring delete works for you, but I would personally expect the stock design to hold up better long term. You may have problems eventually from engaging the clutch at speed (since the bearing has to spin up to catch up to the pressure plate), and things may also get weird as the clutch continues to wear and the fingers stick out more, pushing the bearing further back. But that’s all estimated guesswork, we’ll see how it really goes. I do hope you can get to a solution that works for you eventually.


After what I’ve read about Clutchmasters in other threads (probably more on 2G forum?), I’m not real confident they have mastered a design of something that really works. I think the stock design is best but the parts all need to be in good shape all the time.

 

Lol. I remember the TOB starting squaking on my new 2013 Jeep JK at about 15k miles. Squaked for the next 11 years of ownership, no issues with the M/T operation and the clutch (still the stock clutch) when i recently sold it.

Currently on 5k miles with my M/T tacoma. Haven't heard anything yet.

Can we just ignore the TOB squak in these too?

 

Thanks, and good points.

Not sure about the fingers causing the chirping, esp as a new bearing is usually a lot more stiff than an old one. Fresh seals and higher viscosity in the grease? There is certainly no noise when messing with the fork while the engine is idling. The two new ones were quiet and without issue.

The funny thing is that how all three made different noises. The first one was chirping all the time. The seconds started with the same chirp but was progressing to a grind in just a few hours of driving. This one only does it at certain RPMs. All three made a slightly different chirp when on the throttle or coasting.


You are right that bearings are rated for side loads. We have no idea what this one is rated for. We also know that the issues are rare. I'm just stuck with one.


I do not disagree about replacing the whole deal. That was in my head from the start. The worry is that I don't want to sink all that time and money to be back here in another 10k. Ha!


2nd Gens were certainly a different monster. Regardless, I'm off the ClutchMasters bearing.


The potential answer might be a new clutch and TOB. Likely sticking with the NSSM.

 

When my first one was going, I thought it was an idler bearing on the engine as I would never have thought the TOB would be an issue. It was like that for a month or so until I happened to touch the clutch in the garage and heard the sound disappear.


I would not worry in the least about your Taco. This is a very rare thing, even confirming that with dealer parts folks.


My initial worry was that there were reports on 2nd Gens for the TOB catastrophically failing and taking other parts with it. I didn't want to risk that. Now with this bearing barely loaded, I'm more confident to live with it and will know that if the chirp comes back at this loading, I need to do something.


For the JK, it depends on the design. Was it air gapped, loaded like the Taco with a heavy spring, or just the like mine is now, just the clutch fluid head pressure?

 

I'm rolling past 244k on my 2017 . Work and play

 

That is awesome. I hope to get there someday. Nothing else is getting me excited. That's for sure.

 

What is a clutch and why does it need a slave from the factory?

 

Shit! Hahaha!

 

Any coming up soon

 

Nothing but camping at Gallagher in September.

 

Update:

I'm very happy with this and am changing the recommendation to: Give it a try if you're having TOB issues.

The notes that I have are:

-- The engage point is moved just a bit closer to the floor. Zero clutch drag, but it does change the feel of the stupid overcenter spring. I can feel it flipping over after the clutch is engaged.

-- Because of the feel of that spring, I can also tell that the engage point changes very slightly. This is likely due to the resting position of the TOB changing slightly.​

In the the end, I am just more happy with the loading on the TOB.

 

It’s been several months, is your TOB still quiet? I’m coming up on 65,000 mi and recently noticed the same squeak/chirp with mine. It goes away with slight clutch pressure. I’m not sure if I should ignore it or do something about it.